U£-- This book is DUE on the last date stamped below LD-UR :'/ , FEB 6 1935 ' lUN^ 8197* 194? |LD.URf° ' i 7 J965 AU& 2 5 'OCT 2 2* AU62 eB'^i 4.0 PM Form L-9-5Tn-12,'23 LECTURES WO O N METAPHYSICS AND LOGIC BY SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART. PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH ; AD"OCArE, A. 51. (OXOX.), ETC.; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE; BONOBAST MEMbER OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES ; AND OF JUE LATIH SOCIETY OF JE.na, »TC. EDITED BY THE REV. HENRY L. MANSEL, R. D., OXFORD, AND JOHN VEITCH, M. A.. EDLNBURGH. IN T"WO VOLUMES. VOL. L , ..METAPHYSICS. '. • • • .* ••• ;•• •*• . ' • • . ••• : *../••• • • • • » 1 , , . • ....... .,, • . *! • * ' ISTEW YOKK: SHELDON AND COMPANY, ^^ ^4 AUTHORIZATION MEbiSRS. GOULD AND LI^"COL^•, OF BOSTON, UNITED STATES, AHE EXCLUSIVELY AUTHOR- IZED BY ME TO PUBLISH IN AMEISICA THE LECTURES, METAPHYSICA L AND LOGICAL, OF THE LATE SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BAKT. HXTBEKT HAMILTON. 10 Cheat Kino Street, ruiNULKGii, 14 Sept.. 1853. ' 'c' » t I I I I J 3 LE'CTURE ON ETAPHYSIC BY SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, EARTo :?EOirrssorv of logic and metaphysics in the ukiveksitt op EDursuEQa EDITED BY TEE REY. HENRY LONGUEVILLE MANSEL. B. D., OXFORD, AND JOHN VEITCH, M. A., EDINBURGH. ISTEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY, CK EAnTII, THERE IS KCTHlWG GliEAT DTIT MAKJ 22« SIAK, "i-HSr-E iS HOTH3WG QKEAT BUT MIKI> I>REFA.C E. The following Lectures on Metaphysics constitute the first portion of the Biennial Course which the lamented Author was in the habit of delivering during the period of his occupation of the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics, in the University of Edinburgh. The Lec- .tures on Logic, which were delivered in the alternate years, will follow as soon as they can be prepared for publication. In giving these Lectures to the world, it is due, both to the Author and to his readers, to acknowledge that they do not appear in that state of completeness which might have been expected, had they been prepared for publication by the Author himself. As Lectures on Metaphysics, — whether that term be taken in its wider or its stricter sense, — they are confessedly imperfect. The Author himself, adopting ^ the Kantian division of the mental faculties into those of Knowledge, Feeling, and Conation, considers the Philosophy of Mind as compre- hending, in relation to each of these, the three great subdivisions of Psychology, or the Science of the Pha^nomena of Mind ; Nomology, or the Science of its Laws : and Ontology, or the Science of Results and Inferences.^ The term Metaphysics, in its strictest sense, is synonymous with the last of these subdivisions ; while, in its widest flense, it may be regarded as including the first also, — the seoond I See below, Lecture vii., p 86 << Mq. VI PREFACE. being, in practice at least, if not in scientific accuracy, usually dis- tributed among other departments of Philosophy. The following Lectures cannot be considered as embracing the whole province ol" Metaphysics in either of the above senses. Among the Phtenomena of Mind, the Cognitive Faculties are discussed fully and satisfactorily ; those of Feeling are treated with less detail ; those of Conation receive scarcely any special consideration ; while the questions of Ontology, or Metaphysics proper, are touched upon only incidentally. The omission of any special discussion of this last branch may perhaps be justified by its abstruse character, and unsuitableness for a course of elementary instruction ; but it is especially to be regretted, both on account of the general neglect of this branch of study by the entire school of Scottish philosophers, and also on account of the eminent qualifications which the Author possessed for supplying this acknowledged deficiency. A treatise on Ontology from the pen of Sir William Hamilton, embodying the final results of the Philosophy of the Conditioned, would have been a boon to the philosophical world such as probably no writer now living is capable of conferring. The circumstances under which these Lectures were written must also be taken into account in estimating their character, both as a specimen of the Author's powers, and as a contribution to philo- sophical literature. Sir William Hamilton was elected to the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in July, 1836. In the interval between his appointment and the commencement of the College Session (November of the same year), the Author was assiduously occupied in making prepara- tion for discharging the duties of his office. The principal part of those duties consisted, according to the practice of the University, in the delivery of a Course of Lectures on- the subjects assigned to the chair. On his appointment to the Professorship, Sir William Hamilton experienced considerable difficulty in deciding on the character of the PREFACE. Vn course of Lectures on Philosophy, which, while doing justice to the subject, would at the same time meet the wants of his auditors, who were ordinarily composed of comparatively young students, in (lie second year of their university curriculum. The Author of the artichi^ on Cousin's Philosophy,^ on Perception^- and on Logic^' had already given ample proof of those speculative accomplishments, and that profound philosophical learning, which, in Britain at least, were con- joined in an equal degree by no other man of his time. But those very qualities which placed him in the front rank of speculative thinkers, joined to his love of precision and system, an. These Lectures were thus designed solely for a temporary purpos< the use of the Author's own clas.ses ; they wcic moreover, always regarded by the Author himself as defective as a complete ( oni-e of Metaphysics ; and they never were revised by liiin w illi ,uiy view tn publication, and this chiefly for the reason tliai he intended to make use of various portions of them whicii had not been ineor}xirateii in 1 Edinburgh Rfvieic, 1829. 2 Ibid., 1830. ' Ibid.. 1«B VIII PREFACE. his other writings, in the promised Supplementary Dissertations to Reid's Works, — a design which his failing health did not perjnit him to complete. The Lectures on Logic were not composed until the following Session (1837—8). This Course was also, in great part, written during the currency of the Session, These circumstances will account for the repetition, in some places, of portions of the Author's previously published writings, and for the numerous and extensive quotations from other writers, which are inter- spersed throughout the present Course. Most of these have been ascertained by references furnished by the Author himself, either in the manuscript of the present Lectures, or in his Common Place Book. These quotations, while they detract in some degree from the originality of the work, can, however, hardly be considered as lessening its value. Many of the authors quoted are but little known in this country ; and the extracts from their writings will, to the majority of readers, have all the novelty of original remarks. They also exhibit, in a remarkable degree, the Author's singular power of appreciating and making use of every available hint scattered through those obscurer regions of thought, through which his extensive reading conducted him. No part of Sir William Hamilton's writings more completely verifies the remark of his American critic, Mr. Tyler : " There seems to be not even a random thought of any value, which has been dropped along any, even obscure, path of mental activity, in any age or country, that his diligence has not recovered, his sagacity appreciated, and his judg- ment husbanded in the stores of his knowledge."^ Very frequently, indeed, the thought which the Author selects and makes his own, acquires its value and significance in the very process of selection; 1 Princeton Review, October, 1855. This of Philosophy in the Poit and in the Futwre. article has since been republished with the Philadelphia, 1338. Antbor's name, in bis Essay on the Progress PREFACE. IX and the contribution is more enriclicd than the .adopter; for what, in another, is but a passing reflection, seen in a faint light, isolated and fruitless, often rises, in the hands of Sir William Hamilton, to the rank of a great, permanent, and luminous principle, receives its appro[)riat(' place in the order of truths to which it belongs, and proves, in many instances, a centre of radiation over a wide expanse of the field of human knowledge. The present volume may also appear to some disadimntage on account of the length of time which has elapsed between its composition and its publication. Other writings, particularly the Dissertations appended to Raid's Works,^ and part of the new matter in the Discussions, though earlier in point of publication, contain later and more mature phases of the Author's thought, on some of the questions discussed in the following pages. Much that would have been new to English readers twenty years ago, has, subsequently, in a great measure by the instru- mentality of the Author himself, become well known ; and the familiar expositions designed for the oral instruction of beginners in philos- ophy, have been eclipsed by those profounder reflections which have been published for the deliberate study of the philosophical world at large. But, when all these deductions have been made, the work before us will still i-emain a noble monument of the Author's philosopliical genius and learning. In many respects, indeed, it is quaiitifl to iKJCome more popular than any of his other publications. The very necessity which the Author was under, of adapting his observations, in some degz"ee, to the needs and attainments of his hearei-s, ha-^ also fitted them for the instruction and gratification of a wide circle of' general readers, who would have less relish for tli<' severer style in which some of his later thoughts are conveyed. The present Lectures, > The/oo«-nolM to Reid were, for the most part, written nearly contemporaneouily with the present Lectures. X PREFACE. H" in depth and exactness of" thought they are, for the most part^ not equal to the jyissertations on Reid, or to some portions of the Discus- sions, possess attractions of their own, which will probably recommend ihem to a more numerous class of admirers; while they retain, in no small degree, the ample learning and philosophical acunien which are identified with the Author's previous reputation. Apart, however, from considerations of their intrinsic value, thes« Lectures possess a high academical and historical interest. For twenty years, — from 183G to 1856, — the Courses of Logic and Metaphysics were the means through which Sir William Hamilton sought to disci- pline and imbue with his philosophical opinions, the numerous youth wlio gathered from Scotland and other countries to his class-room ; and while, by these prelections, the Author supplemented, developed, and moulded the National Philosophy, — leaving thereon the inefface- able impress of his genius and learning, — he, at the same time and by the same means, exercised over the intellects and feelings of his pupils an influence which, for depth, intensity, and elevation, was certainly never surpassed by that of any philosophical instructor. Among liis pupils there are not a few who, having lived for a season under tlie consti-aining power of his intellect, and been led to reflect on those great questions regarding the character, origin, and bounds of human knowledge, which liis teachings stirred and quickened, bear the memory of their beloved and revered Instructor inseparably blended with what is highest in their present intellectual life, as well as in their practical aims and aspirations. The Editors, in offering these Lectures to the public, are, therefore, encouraged to express their belief, that they will not be found unworthy of the illustrious name which they bear. In the discharge of their own duties as annotators, the Editors have tfiought it due to the fame of the Author, to leave his opinions to be judged entirely by their own merits, without the accompaniment of criticisms, concurrent or dis* PREFACE. XI sentient. For the same reason, they have abstained from noticing such criticisms as have appeared on those portions of the work which have already been published in other forms. Their own annotations are, for the most part, confined to occasional explanations and verifi' cations of the numerous references and allusions scattered through the text. The notes fall, as will be observed, into three classes: I. Original ; notes printed from the manuscript of the present Lectures. These appear without any distinctive mai-k. Mere Jottings or Memoranda by the Author, made on the manuscript, are generally marked as such. To these are also added a few Oi-al Interpolations of the Author, made in the course of reading the Lectures, which have been recovered from the note-books of students. II. Supplied ; notes extracted or compiled by the Editors from the Author's Common Place Book and fragmentary papers. These are enclosed in square brackets, and are without signature. m. Editorial ; notes added by the Editors. These always bear the signature '* Ed." When added as supplementary to the original or supplied notes, they are generally enclosed in square brackets, besides having the usual signature. The Editors ha\e been at pains to trace and examine the notes of the first and second classes with much care ; and have succeeded in discovering the authorities referred to, with veiy few and insignificant exceptions. The Editors trust that the Original and Supplied Notes may prove of service to students of Philosophy, as indications of sources of philosopliical opinions, which, in many cases, are but little, if at all, known in this country. The Appendix embraces a few papers, chiefly fragmentary, which appeared to the Editors to be deserving of publication. Several of these are fragments of discussions which the Author had written with Xn PREFACE. a view to the Memoir of ^Ir. Dugald Stewart, on the editorship ot whose works he was engaged at the period of his death. They thus possess the melancholy interest which attaches to the latest of his compositions. To these philosophical fragments have been added a few papers on physiological subjects. These consist of an extract from the Author's Lectures on Phrenology, and communications made by him to various medical publications. Apart from the value of their results, these physiological investigations serve to exhibit, in a depart- ment of inquiry foreign to the class of subjects with which the mind of the Author was ordinarily occupied, that habit of careful, accurate, and unsparing research, by which Sir William Hamilton was so emi- nently characterized. CONTEI^TS. • LECTURE I. PAOB PHILOSOPHY — ITS ABSOLUTE UTILITY, (A) SUBJECTIVE, . 1 LECTURE II. PHILOSOPHY — ITS ABSOLUTE UTILITY, (B) OBJECTIVE, 14 LECTURE III. PHILOSOPHY — ITS NATURE AND COMPREHENSION, .... 31 LECTURE IV. PHILOSOPHY — ITS CAUSES 46 LECTURE V. PHILOSOPHY — THE DISPOSITIONS WITH WHICH IT OUGHT TO BE STUDIED, 57 C XIV CONTENTS. LECTURE VI. PHILOSOPHY — ITS METHOD, FAOK LECTURE VII. PHILOSOPHY- ITS DIVISIONS 78 LECTURE VIII. PSYCHOLOGY — ITS DEFINITION — EXPLICATION OF TERMS, . . 91 LECTURE IX. EXPLICATION OF TERMS — RELATIVITY OF HUMAN KNOVS^LEDGE, 107 LECTURE X. EXPLICATION OF TERMS, 117 LECTURE XI. OUTLINE OF DISTRIBUTION OF MENTAL PHjENOMENA — CON- SCTOUSNESS— ITS SPECIAL CONDITIONS, 126 LECTURE XII. CONSaOUSNESS — ITS SPECIAL CONDITIONS — RELATION TO COG- NITIVE FACULTIES IN GENERAL, US CONTENTS. XV LECTURE XIII. FAOB CONSCIOUSNESS — ITS SPECIAL CONDITIONS — RELATION TO COG- NITIVE FACULTIES IN GENERAL, 154 LECTURE XIV. CONSCIOUSNESS — ATTENTION IN GENERAL, 171 LECTURE XV. CONSCIOUSNESS — ITS EVIDENCE AND AUTHORITY, .... 183 LECTURE XVI. CONSCIOUSNESS — VIOLATIONS OF ITS AUTHORITT, . . . . 193 LECTv::«ii: xvii. CONSCIOUSNESS — GENERAL PHENOMENA — ARE WE ALWAYS CONSCIOUSLY ACTIVE ? 216 LECTURE XVIII. CONSCIOUSNESS — GENERAL I'lLENOMENA — IS THE MIND EVER UNCONSCIOUSLY ^lOIMITED ? 235 LECTURE XIX. CONSCIOUSNESS — GENERAL riLKNOMENA — PIFFICULTreS AND FACILITIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY 253 XVI CONTENTS. LECTURE XX. FAQB DISTRIBUTION OF THE SPECIAL COGNITIVE FACULTIES, . . 267 LECTURE XXI. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY — I. PERCEPTION — REID'S HISTORI- CAL VIEW OF THE THEORIES OF PERCEPTION, . . . . 279 LECTURE XXII. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY — I. PERCEPTION — REID'S HISTORI- CAL VIEW OF THE THEORIES OF PERCEPTION, . , . . .297 LECTURE XXIII. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY — I, PERCEPTION — WAS REID A NAT- URAL REALIST ? 311 LECTURE XXIV. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY — I. PERCEPTION — THE DISTINC- TION OF PERCEPTION PROPER FROM SENSATION PROPER, . 327 LE CTURE XXV. THE PRESENT ATF^E FACULTY — I. PERCEPTION — OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF NATURAL REALISM, 348 LECTURE XXVI. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY — I. PERCEPTION — THE REPRESEN- TATIVE HYPOTHESIS, 361 CONTENTS. XVn LECTURE XXVII. Age THE KiESENTATIVE FACULTY — I. PERCEPTION — GENERAL QUES- TIONS IN RELATION TO THE SENSES, 373 LECTURE XXVIII. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY - I. PERCEPTION - RELATION OF SIGHT AND TOUCH TO EXTENSION, 384 LECTURE XXIX. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY — U. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, . . 39T LECTURE XXX. THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY— MEMORY PROPER 411 LECTURE XXXI. THE REPRODUCTIVE FACULTY — LAWS OF ASSOCIATION, . . 424 LECTURE XXXII. THE REPRODUCTIVE FACULTY — LAWS OF ASSOCIATION — SUGGES- TION-REMINISCENCE <36 LECTURE XXXIII. THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY — IMAGINATION 450 XVIII CONTENTS. LECTURE XXXIV. PAOB THE ELABORATIVE FACULTY — CLASSIFICATION — ABSTRACTION, 463 LECTURE XXXV. THE ELABORATIVE FACULTY — GENERALIZATION, NOMINALISM, AND CONCEPTUALISM, 473 LECTURE XXXVI. THE ELABORATIVE FACULTY — GENERALIZATION — THE PRIMUM COGNITUM, . . 48» LECTURE XXXVII. THE ELABORATIVE FACULTY — JUDGMENT AND REASONIUG, . 502 LECTURE XXXVIII. THE REGULATIVE FACULTY, 512 LECTURE XXXIX. THE REGULATIVE FACULTY — LAW OF THE CONDITIONED IN ITS APPLICATIONS — CAUSALITY, 33a LECTURE ^L THE REGULATIVE FACULTY — LAW OF THE CONDITIONED IN ITS APPLICATIONS — CAUSALITY, 350 CONTENTS. XIX LECTURE XLI. • PAGK SECOND GREAT CLASS OF MENTAL PHENOMENA — THE FEELINGS. THEIR CHARACTER AND RELATION TO THE COGNITIONS AND CONATIONS, . . .->59 LECTURE XLII. THE FEELINGS— THEORY OF PLEASURE AND PAIN, . . . .571 LECTURE XLIII. THE FEELINGS — HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THEORIES URE AND PAIN, LECTURE XL IV. THE FEELINGS — APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF PLEASURE AND PAIN TO THE PHiENOMENA, 602 LECTURE XLV. THE FEELINGS — THEIR CLASSES, 61J LECTURE XLVI. THE FEELINGS — THEIR CLASSES — THE BEAUTIFUL AND SUBLIME, 623 3Uf 'JONTENTS. APPENDIX. VAOB I. — (A) ACADEMICAL HONORS, 635 (B) THE SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY— FRAGMENTS. (a) PORTION OF INTRODOCTORT LECTURE (1836), . . . t>40 (^) M. JOUFFROY'S criticism of the SCOTTISH SCHOOL, . . 645 (C) GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL, . 646 (d) KANT AND REID, ,646 (e) KANT'S DOCTRINE OF SPACE AND TIME, 647 n. — PHYSIOLOGICAL. • (a) PHRENOLOGY, 648 (6) EXPERIMENTS ON THE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN, . . . 6-59 (c) REMARKS ON DR. MORTON'S TABLES, 660 (d) ON THE FRONTAL SINUS, 662 III. — PERCEPTION, , 6T7 IV. — LAWS OF THOUGHT, . 679 v.— THE CONDITIONED. (a) rant's DOCTRINE OF JUDGMENTS, AND AUTHOE's THEORY OF NECESSITY, 681 (6) CONTRADICTIONS PROVING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF THE CONDITIONED, ....... 682 (C) THE ABSOLUTE — DISTINCTIONS OF MODE OF REACHING IT, 68? (d) LETTER OF SIR \V. Il.i^MILTOK TO JIR. HENRY CALDEEWOOD, 684 (e) THE DOCTRINE OF RELATION, 688 VI. — CAUSATION — LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. (a) CAUSATION 689 (6) LIBERTY AND NECESSITY, AS VIEWED BY THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL, 69y (c) LIBERTY AND NKCE33ITY, 693 LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS LECTURE I. PHILOSOPHY— ITS ABSOLUTE UTILITY (a.) subjectivk. Gentlkmex — In the commencement of a course of ins'^ruction in any department of knOAvle.i subiect, to premise a general survey ot the more important advantage-! Avliich it aff(?rds, and this with the view of animating tlie student to a higher assiduity, by holding u}} to him, in prospect, some at least of those ]»enefits and pleasures which he may j^romise to himself in reward cf his ex- ertions. And if such a preparation be fotmd expedient for other branches of study, it is, I tliink, peculiarly requisite m I'hil- Tiio exhibition of osopliv, — Philosophy Proper, — the Sci'.Micc of these, why i)eculiaily -»r- n ' t. • i f> i ■, . ■ j^jjjjj^jj^ Mnid. J^or, ni the nrst place, the most import- ant advantages to be derived from the cultiva- tion of philoso]ihy, are not, in themselves, direct, palpable, obtru- sive : they are, therefore, of their own nature, peculiarly liable to be overlooked or disparaged by the world at large ; because to estimate them at their proper value requires in the judge more than a vulgar com] dement of intormation and intelligence. But, in the second ])Iace, the many are not simply by negative incompetence disqualified for an opinion ; they are, moreover, by positive error, at once rendered incapable of judging right; and yet, by jiositive error, encouraged to a decision. For there are at present afloat, and in very general acceptation, certain superficial misconceptions in regard to the end and objects of education, which render the popular opinion of the comj)arative inqiortance of its different branches, not merely false, but precisely the revei-se of truth : the 2 METAPHYSICS. Lect. L Studies which, in reality, are of the highest value as a mean of intel- lectual development, being those which, on the vulgar standard of utility, are at the very bottom of the scale ; while those wliich, in the nomenclature of the multitude, are emphatically, — distinc- tively, denominated the Useful, are precisely those which, in relation to the great ends of liberal education, possess the least, and least general, utility. In considering the utility of a branch of knowledge, it behooves us, in the first place, to estimate its value as utility of a branch viewed simply in itself; and, in the second, its of knowledge of two ^^j^^g ^^ viewed in relation to other branches. grand kinds - Abso- . i • -^ ,/. • • i i i • lute and Relative. Considered in Itself, a science is valuable in pro- portion as its cultivation is immediately condu- cive to the mental improvement of the cultivator. This may be called its Absolute utility. In relation to others, a science is valu- able in proportion as its study is necessary for the prosecution of other branches of knowledge. This may be called its Relative utility. In this latter point of view, tliat is as relatively useful, I cannot at present enter upon the value of Philosopliy, — I cannot attempt to show how it supplies either the materials or the rules to all the sciences ; and how, in particular, its study is of impor- tance to the Lawyer, the Physician, and, above all, to the Theolo- gian. All this I must for the present pass by. In the former point of view, that is, considered absolutely, or in itself, the philosophy of mind comprises two sev- Absoiute utility of g^.^j utilities, according as it, 1°, Cultivates the two kinds — Subject- • i i • i • i it • /. i • ive and Objective. ^^^^"^^ ^^' knowing subjcct, by calling Its faculties into exercise ; and, 2°, Furnishes the mind with a certain complement of truths or objects of knowledge. The former of these constitutes its Subjective, the latter its Objective utility. These utilities are not the same, nor do they even stand to each other in any necessary proportion. As the special consid- eration of both is more than I can compass in the present Lecture, I am constrained to limit myself to one alone ; and as the subject- ive utility is that which has usually been overlooked, though not assuredly of the tAVO the less imi>ortant, while at the same time its exposition affords in part the rationale of the method of instruc- tion which I have adopted, I shall at jjresent only attempt an illus- tration of the advantages afforded by the Philosophy of Mind, regarded as the study which, of all others, best cultivates the mind or subject of knowledge, by supplying to its higher ficultios the occasions of their most vigorous, and thei-efore their most improving, exercise. Lect. 1. mp:taphysics. 3 There are few, I believe, disposed to question the speculative dig- Practicai utility of "1*^7 of mental Science ; but its practical utility Philosophy. jg not unfrequcntly denied. To what, it is asked, is the science of mind conducive? What are its uses? I am not one of those who think that the importance of a study is sufficiently established Avhen its dignity is admitted ; for, holding that knowledge is for the sake of man, and not man lor the sake of knowledge, it is necessary, in order to vindicate its value, that every science should be able to show what are the advantages which it promises to confer upon its student. I, therefore, profess myself a utilitarian ; and it is only on the special ground of its utility that I Avould claim for the i)hilosophy of mind, M'hat I regard as its peculiar and preeminent imiiortance. But The Useful. ^ . . c r,- what is a utilitarian ? Simply one who prefers the Useful to the Useless — and who does not ? But what is the useful ? That which is prized, not on its own account, but as con- ducive to the acquisition of something else, — the useful is, in short, only another word for a mean towards an end ; for every mean is useful, and whatever is useful is a mean. Now tiie value of a mean is always in proportion to the valile of its end; and the useful being a mean, it follows, that, of two utilities, the one which con- duces to the more valuable end will be itself the more \ aluable utility. So far there is no dilference of opinion. All agree that the useful is a mean towards an end ; and that, cceteris ^x<>v7/'<.!{, a mean towards a higher end constitutes a higher utility than a mean towards a lower. The only dispute that has arisen, or can j>os- sibly arise, in regard to the utility of means (su]i]iosing always their relative efficiency), is founded on the various views that may be entertained in regard to the existence and comparative impor- tance of ends. Now the various opinions which prevail concerning the com- parative utility of human sciences and studies, Two errors in the have all arisen from two errors.' rM:)imlar estimate of ri-ii n ^ c ^i • ... the comparative utili- ^ ''^ "'"^^^ of these cousists HI Viewing man, not ty of human sciences. ;is an end unto /tiiii.silj\ but merely as a mean or- ganized for the sake of something out of liiinKtlf: and, under this partial view of hiiiiiau ait of a dexterous instrument. 1 With the following observations may be education, in his article on the .<:tu(ly of niatlv compared the author's remarks on the dis- ematicsi, Edinburgh Review, vol. Ixil.. p. 4091 tiuction between a liberal and a professional reprinted iu his /Jisd/jwioiw, p. 263.— Ed. 4 METAPHYSICS. Lect. L The soconrl, and the more dangerous of these errors, consists in reiiarding the cultivation of our faculties as subordinate to the acquisition of knowledge, instead of regarding the possession of knowledge as subordinate to the cultivation of our faculties ; and, in consequence of this error, those sciences which afford a greater number of more certain facts, have been deemed superior in utility to those which bestow a higher cultivation on the higher faculties of the mind. As to the first of these errors, the fallacy is so palpable, that we may well wonder at its prevalence. It is mani- an an en un o ^^^. jj-jfj^^^] ^]^jj|. ^nan, in SO far as he is a mean himself. ' ' ' for the glory of God, must be an end unto him- self, for it is only in the accomplishment of his OAvn perfection, that, as a creature, he can manifest the glory of his Creator. Though therefore man, by relation to God, be but a mean, for that very reason, in relation to all else Is he an end. Wherefore, now speaking of him exclusively in his natural capacity and temporal relations, I say it is manifest that man is by nature necessarily an l^ end to himself, — that his perfection and happiness constitute the goal of his activity, to which he tends, and ought to tend, when not diverted from this, his general and native destination, by j)ecu- liar and accidental circumstances. But it is equally evident, that, under the condition of society, individual men are, for the most part, to a greater or less degree, actually so diverted. To live, the individual must have the means of living; and these means, (unless he already possess them,) he must i)rocure, — he must purchase. But purchase with what ? With his services, i. e. — he must reduce himself to an instrument, — an instrument of utility to others, and the services of this instrument he must, barter for those means of subsistence of which he is in want. In other words, he must exer- cise some trade, calling, or i)rofession. Thus, in the actualities of social life, each man, instead of being solely an end to himself, — instead of being able to make everything subordinate to that full and harmonious develojjment of his indivi- dual faculties, in which his full perfection and his true hai)pines3 consist, — is, in general, comj^elled to degrade himself into the mean or instrument towards the accomplishment of some end, external to himself, and for the benefit of others. Now the perfection of man as an end, and the perfection of man as a mean or instrument, are not only not Liberal and profes- ^^^^ ^^ ^^ .^^ reality, generally opi)Osed. sional education. > j i ji n j i i And as these two perfections are different, so the training requisite for their acquisition is not identical, and has, ac- Lkct. J. METAPHYSICS. 5 cordingly, been distingiiislied by different names. The one is styled Libenil, the otlier Professional education, — the bi'anches of knowl- edge cidtivated for these purposes being called respectively liberal and professional, or liberal and lucrative, sciences. By the Germans, the latter arc usually distinguished as the lifodicissennc/iir/'te/i, Avhich we may translate, IVie Bread and Butter /Sciences} A few of the professions, indeed^ as requiring a higher development of the higher faculties and involving, therefore, a greater or less amount of liberal education, have obtained the name of liberal professions. We must, however, recollect that this is only an accidental and a \ ery partial exception. But though the full and liarmonious develoji- ment of our faculties be the high and natural destination of all, while the cultivation of any professional dexterity is only a contin- gency, though a contingency incumbent upon most, it has, however, happened that the paramount and universal end of man, — i^f man absolutely, — has been often ignorantly lost sight of, and the term useful appropriated exclusively to those acquirements which have a value only to man considered in his relative, lower, and accidental character of an instrument. But, because some have thus been led to appropriate the name of useful to those studies and objects of knowledge, which are conducive to the inferior end, it assuredly does not follow that those conducive xo the isapp ication o liigrher have not a far preferable title to the name the term useful. ^ ^ ^ '■ thus curiously denied to them. Elven admit- ting, therefore, that the study of mind is of no immediate advan- tage in prepai'ing the student for 'many of the subordinate parts in the mechanism of society, its utility cannot, on that account, be called in question, unless it be asserted that man "liveth by bread alone,'' and has no higher destination than that of the calling by which he earns his subsistence. The second error to which I have adverted, revei-ses the relative subordination of knowledge and of intelleetmd Knowledge and in- ^...itjvatiou. In refutation of this, I shall attc.mpt tellectual cultivation. . .' briefly to show, frsf/i/, that knowledge and in- tellectual cultivation are not identical; stro/tdfi/^ that knowledge is itself i)rincipally valuable as a mean of intellectual cultivation ; and, Instl//, that intellectual cultivation is more directly ami effec- tually accomplished by the study of mind than by any other of ..ur rational pursuits. But to prevent misapprehension, I may pi'cmise wliat I mean by knowledge, and what by intellectual cultivation. By knowledge is understood the mere |>ossession of truths: bv intellectual cultiva- 1 Schellinrr, Vorlrxungfn Mertlie M-'thoile ties Academifrhtn Slurliym, y). dl. — Kd. 6 METAPHYSICS Lect. 1. tion, or intellectual development, the power, acquired through exercise by the liigher faculties, of a more varied, vigorous and pro- tracted activity. In the first place, then, it Avill be requisite, I conceive, to say but little to show that knowledge and intellee- Not identical. i t i i ^i tual development are not only not the same, but stand in no necessary proportion to each other. This is manifest if we consider the very different conditions under Avhich these two qualities are acquired. The one condition under which all powers, and consequently the intellectual faculties, are developed, is exercise. The more intense and continuous the exercise, the more vigorously developed will be the power. But a cei-tain quantity of knowledge, — in other words, a certain amount of possessed truths, — does not suppose, as its condition, a corresponding sum of intellectual exercise. One truth requires much, another truth requires little, effort in acquisition ; and, while the original discovery of a truth evolves perhaps a maximum of the highest quality of energy, the subsequent learning of that truth elicits probably but a minimum of the very lowest. But, as it is evident that the possession of truths, and the devel- o])ment of the mind in which they are deposited, Is truth or mental ^j.^ jjq^ identical, I proceed, in the second place, exercise the superior •,, ,i. -i i n i- i^- to show that, considered as emls, and m relation end ? ' ' to each other, the knowledge of truths is not su- preme, but subordinate to the cultivation of the knowing mind. The question — Is Truth, or is the Mental Exercise in the ])ursuit of truth, the superior end ? — this is perhaps the most curious theoretical, and certainly the most important practical, problem in the whole com- pass of philosophy. For, according to the solution at which we ar- rive, must we accord the higher or the lower rank to certain great departments of study ; and, what is of more importance, the char- aoter of its solution, as it determines the aim, regulates from first to last the method, which an enlightened science of education must adopt. But, however curious and important, this question has never, in so far as I am aware, been regularly discussed. Popular solution of y^^^,^ ^^.j^.^^ jg g^j|j ^^^^^.^ i-g, nark able, the erroneous this question. i ' • i i n i alternative has been very generally assumed as true. The consequence of this has been, that sciences of far infe- rior, have been elevated above sciences o^ar superior, utility ; while education has been systematically distorted, — though truth and nature have occasionally burst the shackles which a ])eiverse theory had iinjjosed. The reason of this is sufficiently obvious. At first Lh.cv. 1. METAPHYSICS. 7 sight, it seems even absurd to doubt that truth is more valuable tliaj\ its ])ursuit; for is this not to say that the end is loss important than the mean? — and on this su|)eriicial view is the prevalent misappre- hension founded. A slight consideration Avill, however, ex])ose the ialhiey. Knowledge is either ])ractical or speculative. In practical knowl- edge it is evident that truth is not the ultimate Practical knowledge; i . ^ ; ii „i i i i • / " ' end; tor, in that case, knowled- 2 PduHes, partie i. art. vii. § 1, (vol. ii. p. .34, niint !•■ rV- — ^^- X.ECT. I. METAniYSICS. 9- and sciences 'are powers, but every power exists only for the sake of action ; the end of i)hik)sophy, therefore, is not knowledge, but the energy conversant about knowledge."' Descending to the schoolmen: "The intellect," says Aquinas, "commences in o^jera- tion, and in o])eration it ends;"- and Scotus even declares that a man's knowledge is measured by the amount of his mental activity — "tantuni scit homo, quantum 0])eratur." " The profoundest thinkers of modern times have emphatically testified to the same great principle. "If," says Malcbranche, "I held truth captive in my hand, I should open my hand and let it fly, in order that I might again pursue and capture it." ■* " Did the .Vlmighty," says Lessing, "holding in his right hand Truth, and in his left /Search after J'ruth, deign to tender me the one I might ])refer, — in all humility, but without hesitation, I should request Search after Truth" ^ "Truth," says Von ^Fuller, "is the property of God, the pursuit of truth is what belongs to man;"" ami Jean Paul Richter: "It is not the goal, but the course, which makes us hapj)y." But there would be no end of similar quotations. '' But if si)eculative truth itself be only valuable as a mean of in- tellectual activity, those studies which deter- rhiiosopiiy best en- jj,i,ie the faculties to a more vigorous exertion, titled to the appclla- ti i i % -it tion useful. "^^'^^^' "' e\eiy lil)eral sense, l^e better entitled, absolutely, to the name of useful,* than those Avhich, with a greater complement of more certain facts, awaken them to a less intense, ami consequently to a less improving exer- cise. On this ground I Avould rest one of the jireominent utilities of mental philosophy. That it comprehends all the sublimest ob- jects of our theoretical and moral interest; — that every (natural) conclusion concerning God, the soul, the jiresent worth and the future destiny of man, is exclusively deduced from the philosoph.y 1 This sentence seems to be made up from p!icat pnemissas ail concliisioneni. Sicigitur two separate passages in the Metaphysics, lib. patet (piod actualitas scientiic est ex applica- viii. c. 2. Tlaaai at rt'xi'oi Kal aiTToivriKat tione causx ad effi'cfuin "' Compare Qua'>t. Kai ^TTUTTrj/xai Sufa/xfiS flalv. Lib. n iii. c. ij , " An aciiiiisitio .-ciiMitiif sit nobis jier doc- 8: TeAos S' r] ivipyna, kou rovrov X"P"' trinam" — for his view of tlie end and means T] Sufa/xts Kan^di/fTat' . . . Kol t^c dea>- of education — Kd pT]TiK^v (txoiKrji/) Vfo dfwpwffiV oAA' ov 4 [" Malebrancbe disait avec une ingeni- bewpovffii' iVa ^(ciiprjriKTiV ^x'^"'"'- — ^'■^^- cu.se e.\a>:<-ration, 'Si je fenais la vorit<' cap- - Tliis is p<'rhai>s tbo substance of Summn, tivc dans ma main, j'ouvrirais la nuiin alin de Pars i., Q. Ixxix., art. ii. and iii. — En. poursiiivre encore la verite.' " — Mazure, Gawri .1 These words cnntam the substance of the erseded ; consequently, to justify the continuance of 1 On the Sublime atul Beautiful, p. 8. — Ed Lect. I. METAPHYSICS. 11 their existence and privileges, they must accomplish something that cannot be accomplished by books. But it is a remarkable circum- stance that, before the invention of printing, universities viewed the activity of the jjupil as the great mean of cultivation, and the communication of knowledge as only of subordinate importance; Avhereas, since that invention, universities, in general, have gradu- ally allowed to fall into disuse the powerful means which they possess of rousing, the pupil to exertion, and have been too often content to act as mere oral instruments of information, forgetful, it would almost seem, that Fust and Coster ever lived. It is acknowledged, indeed, that this is neither the principal nor the proper purpose of a university. Every writer on academical edu- cation from every corner of Europe proclaims the abuse, and, in this and other universities, much has been done by individual ef- fort to correct it.^ But though the common duty of all academical instructors be the cultivation of the student, through the The true end of hb- awakened excrcise of his faculties, this is more «ral education. ... especially incumbent on those to whom is in- trusted the department of liberal education ; for, in this dejiart- ment, the pupil is trained, not to any mere professional knowledge, but to the command and employment of his faculties in general. But, moreover, the same obligation is specially The conditions of in- imposed upon a professor of inte'llectual pliil- struction in intellec- , , , ,. , />i. i-^ . , , ., , osophy, bv the peculiar nature ot his sub ect, and the conditions under which alone it can be taught. The jtluenomena of the external world are so palpable and so easily described, that the experience of one observer suffices to render the facts he has witnessed intelligible and probable to all. The phtenomena of tlie internal world, on the contrary, are not ('a]iable of being thus described: all that the prior observer can do, is to enable othei's to repeat liis experience. In the science of mind, we can neither uiiderstand nor be convinced of anything at secondhand. Here testimony can impose no belief; and instruc- tion is only instruction as it enables us to teach ourselves. A fact of consciousness, however accurately observed, however clearly described, and however great may be our confidence in the observer, is for us as zero, until we have observed and recognized it ourselves. Till tliai be hilosopliv of mind, instruction can do little more than point out the jiosition in which the ))upil ought to ]>l:ice himself, in order to verify, by his own 1 Compare Dixcussiom. ji. 77-. — F,i> 12 METAPHYSICS. ..b.Ci. experience, the flicts which his instructor proposes to him as true. The instructor, therefore, proclaims, oi ^tAoo-o^i'a, dAAa €lv ^ he does not profess to teach philosop/ii/, but to philosop/iize. It is this condition imposed upon the student of doing every- thing himself, that renders the study of the Use and importance jjicntal scicnccs the most improving exercise of of examinations in a . i • i i • i class of Philosophy. intellect. But everythmg depends upon the condition being fulfilled ; ami, therefore, the pri- mary duty of a teacher of philosophy is to take care that the student does actually perform for himself the necessary process^ In the first place, he must discover, by examination, whetlier his- instructions have been effective, — whether they have enabled the pupil to go through the intellectual operation ; and, if not, it be- hooves him to supply what is wanting, — to clear up what has been misunderstood. In this view, examinations are of high importance to a professor ; for without such a medium between the teacher and the taught, he can never adequately accommodate the character of his instruction to the capacity of his pupils. But, in the scond place, besides placing his pupil in a condition to perform the necessary process, the instructor The intellectual in- ought to do what in him lies to determine the structor mus-t seek to -n •?? , -i r- -r> ^ i . ^ ,, .„ ,. pupil s tcill to the performance. But how is influence the will ot ' _i ^ hispupiu. this to be effected? Only by rendering the ef- fort more pleasurable than its omission. But every effort is at first difficult, — consequently irksome. The ulti- mate benefit it promises is dim and remote, while the pupil is often of an age at which present pleasure is more persuasive than future good. The pain of the exertion must, therefore, be overcome by associating with it a still higher pleasure. This can only be cfTccted by enlisting some passion in the cause of improvement. We must awaken emulation, and allow its gratification only through a course of vigorous exertion. Some rigorists, I am aware, would proscribe, on moral and religious grounds, the employment of the passions in education ; but such a \ lew is at once fidse and dan- gerous. The affectious are the work of God ; The place of the pa«- ^j^ ^^j.^ ^^t radicallv cvil ; thev are given us sions in education. n ^ i " i ' i V for useful purjjoses, and are, therefore, not suiht- fiuous. It is their abuse that is alone reprehensible. In truth, however, there is no alternative. In youth passion is pref)on- derant. There is then a redundant amojant of energv which must be expended ; and this, if it find not an outlet through one affec- tion, is sure to find it through another. The aim of education is thus to employ for good those impulses which would otherwise be Lect. I. METAniYSICS. 13 turned to evil. The passions are never neutral ; they are eitlier the best allies, or the Avorst opponents, of improvement. " Man's na- ture," says Bacon, " runs either to herbs or weeds ; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other." ^ Without the stimulus of emulation, what can education accomplish ? The love of abstract knowledge, and tlm habit of application, are still un- formed, and if emulation intervene not, the course by which these are acquired is, from a strenuous and cheerful energy, reduced to an inanimate and dreary effort ; and this, too, at an age when pleas- ure is all-powerful, and impulse predominant over reason. The result is manifest. These views have determined my ])lan of practical instruction. Regarding the communication of knowledge as a high, but not the highest, aini of academical instruction, I shall not content my- self with the delivery of lectures. By all means in my })Ower I shall endeavor to rouse you, gentlemen, to the free and vigorous exercise of your faculties ; and shall deem my task accomplished, not by teaching Logic and Philosophy, but by teaching to reason and philosophize." 1 Essay xxxviii. — " Of Nature in Men." 2 For Fragment containing the Author's — Works, ed. Montagu, volum* i. p. 133. — views on the subject of Academical UouorSr Ed. see Ai)i)endix 1. — Ed. LECTURE II ^ PHILOSOPHY— ITS ABSOLUTE UTILITY. (b.) objective. In the perverse estimate wliicli is often made of the end ami objects of education, it is impossible that the The value of a study. _. n ^r- i -niM i t-. i bcience oi Jlma, — 1 Inlosophy Jrroper, — the Queen of Sciences, as it was denominated of old, should not be degraded in common opinion from its preeminence, as the high- est branch of general education ; and, therefore, before attempting to point out to you what constitutes the value of Philosoj^hy, it becomes necessary to clear the way by establishing a correct no- tion of what the value of a study is. Some things are valuable, finally, or for themselves, — these are ends; other things are valuable, not on their £Dds and means. , ,, . . . own account, but as conducive towards certain ulterior ends, — these are means. The value of ends is absolute, — the valua of means is relative. Absolute value is properly called a f/ood, — relative value is properly called a iitiUfy.^ Of goods, or absolute ends, thei'c are for man but two, — perfection and happiness. By perfection is meant the full and harmonious development of all our faculties, corporeal and mental, intellectual and moral ; by happiness, the complement of all the pleasures of which we are suscej)tible. Xow, I may state, though I cannot at jiresent attempt to prove, and I am afraid many will not even understand Human pcrfecfion ^y^^ statement, that human perfection and hu- and happiness coin- . ' • -, -, , ^j^g man Jia])i)iness coincide, and thus constitute, in reality, but a single end. For as, on the one hand, the perfection or full development of a power is in propor- tion to its capacity of fn-e, vigorous, and continued action, so, on 1 It is to be observed, that tlie Lectures the Course. This circumstance accounts for Mere printed as First and Second, were not the repetition of tlie principal doctrines of uniformly delivered by the Author in that Lecture I. in the opening of Lecture II.— Ed order. The one or other was, however, 2 [Cf. Aristotle, Eth. iVic, lib. i., c. 7, k l-l UBually given as the introductory Lecture of Lkct. il metaphysics. 15 the other, all pleasure is the concomitant of activity; its det^ree being in proportion as that activity is spontaneously intense, its prolongation in proportion as that activj|y is spontaneously con- tinued ; whereas, pain arises either from a faculty being restrained in its spontaneous tendency to action, or from being urged to a deo-ree, or to a continuance, of energy beyond the limit to which it of itself freely tends. To promote our ])erfection is thus to promote our hai)])iness ; for to cultivate fully and harmoniously our various faculties, is simply to enable them by exercise, to energize longer and stronger without painful effort; that is, to afford us a larger amount of a higher quality of enjoyment. Perfection (comprising hapi)iness) being thus the one end of our existence, in so far as man is considered Criterion of the utii- ^.^j^^^. ^^ ^^ ^^^^:^ ^^^^^ himsolf, or as a mean to ity of a study. ^ , . >-< . . • i i the glory of his Creator ; it is evident that, absolutely speaking, that is, without reference to special circum- stances and relations, studies and sciences must, in common with all other pursuits, be judged useful as they contribute, and only as they contribute, to the perfection of our humanity, — that is, to our perfection simply as men. It is manifest that in this rela- tion alone cnn anything distinctively, emphatically, and Avithout qualification, be denominated useful ; for as our jterfection as men is the paramount and universal end proposed to the sj»ecies, what- ever we may style useful in any other relation, ought, as con- ducive only to a subordinate and special end, to be so called, hot simply, but with qualifying limitation. Propriety has, however, in this case, been reversed in common usage. For the term Useful has been exclusively bestowed, in ordinary language, on those branches of instruction which, without reference to his general cultivation as a man or a gentleman, qualify an individual to earn his livelihood by a special knowledge or dexterity in some hura- tive calling or profession ; and it is easy to see how, after the Avord had been thus appropriated to what, following the Germans, we may call the Bread and Butter sciences, those which more ]»rox- imately and obtrusively contribute to the intellectual and mural difuitv of man, slionld, as not having been styled the useful, come, in popular oi)iiU()ii, to be regarded as the useless branches of instruction. As it is proper to have dilfeiviit nanu's f<»r Gcnenii and Partic jiff,.,.,,,,^ ti,!,,^^, wc may call the higher utilitv, ular utility. » .' ; , . ,, or that conducive to the perfection of a man viewed as an end ni himself, by the name of Absolute or Geu- 16 METAPHYSICS. Lect. 1L eral ; the inferior utility, or that conducive to the skill of an indi- A'idual viewed as an instrument for some end out of himself, by the name of Special or Particular. Now, it is evident, that in estimating the utility of any branch of education, we ought to measure it both by the one kind of utility and by the other ; but it is also evident, that a neglect of the former standard will lead us further wrong in appreciating the value of any branch of common or general instruction, than a neglect of the latter. It has been the tendency of different ages, of different coun- tries, of different ranks and conditions of society, to measure the utility of studies rather by one of these standards, than by both. Thus it was the bias of antiquity, when the moral and intellectual cultivation of the citizen was viewed as the great end of all j)o- litical institutions, to appreciate all knowledge principally by the higher standard ; on the contrary, it is unfortunately the bias of our modern civilization, since the accumulation, (and not too the distribution), of riches in a country, has become the grand problem of the statesman, to appreciate it rather by the lower. In considering, therefore, the utility of philosophy, we have, first, to determine its Absolute, and, in the second place, its Special utility — I say its special utility, for, though not itself one of the professional studies, it is mediately more or less conducive to them all. In the present Lecture I must, of course, limit myself to one branch of this division; and even a part of the first or Absolute utility will more than occupy our hour. Limiting myself, therefore, to the utility of philosophy as es- timated by the higher standard alone, it is , / **!-,'^. ^ ' ^ furtlier to be observed, that, on this standard, solute utility. ' ' _ ' a science or study is useful in two different ways, and, as these are not identical, — this pursuit being more useful in the one way, that pursuit more useful in the other, — these in reality constitute two several standards of utility, by which each branch of knowledge ought to be separately measured. The cultivation, the intellectual perfection, of a man, may be estimated by the amount of two different ele- Absoiute utility of a ments ; it mav be estimated by the mere sum science of two kinds- ^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^j^.^.,^ ^^ ^^^ learned. Or it may be Objective and Subjec- . •' tjve. estimated by the greater development of his faculties, as determined by their greater ex- ercise in the jmrsuit and contemplation of truth. For, though this may appear a paradox, these elements are not merely not X.KCT. n. METAPHYSICS. 17 convertible, but are, in fact, very loosely connected with each other ; and as an individual may possess an ample iiiMgazine of knowledge, and still be little better than an intellectual barbarian, 60 the utility of one science may be 2>i'incipally seen in affording a fjreater number of higher and more indisputable truths, — the utility of another in determining the faculties to a higher energy, and consequently to a higlier cultivation. The former of these utilities we may call the Objective, as it regards the object- matter about which our cognitive faculties are occupied ; the other Subjective, inasmuch as it regards our cognitive faculties them- selves as the subject in Avhich knowledge is inherent. I shall not at present enter on the discussion which of these utilities is the higher. In the opening lecture of last year, I endeavored to show that all knowledge is only for the sake of energy, and that even merely speculative truth is valuable only as it determines a greater quantity of higher power 11 ohop i> .lb .^^^^ activity. In that lecture, I also endeav- lective utility. •' ' _ _ ored to sliow that, on the standard of subjective utility, philoso]>hy is of all our studies the most useful; inasmuch as more than any other it exercises, and consequently develoi>s to a higher degree, and in a more varied manner, our noblest fiiculties. At present, on the contrary, I shall confine myself to certain views of the importance of philosoi>hy, estimated l)y the standard of its Objective utility. The discussion, I am aware, will be found somewhat disproportioned to the age and average ca- pacity of my hearers ; but, on this occasion, and before this audi- ence, I ho]te to be excused if I venture for once on matters which, to be adequately understood, require development and illustra- tion from the matured intelligence of those to whom they are presented. Considered in itself, a knowledge of the liuniMu mind, whether we regard its speculative or its practical impor- The human mi.ul tl.e ^^^^^,^^ j^ COufcSSCdly of all StudicS the highest noblest object of spec- . . ^jn^jjj^ and the most interestmg. "On carl li, says an ancient phil<)soj>her, "•there is UDtliing great but man ; in man, there is nothing great but mind."' No other study fills and satisfies the soul like the study of itself. Xo otlier science presents an object to be comj)ared in dignity, in al)Solute or in relative value, to that which human consciousness furnishes to its own contemplation. Wliat is of all things the best, asked 1 [rhuvorinns, quoted by Joannes Ticiis Bnsil.— Ed] For notic* of riiavorinus, dee MiraiKluliinu^, /n A.^tmlogiam. Jib. iii. p. 351, Vossius, De Hist. Grrrc., lib ii. c. 10. — Ed 18 METAPHYSICS. 1^ T. IL Chilon of the Oracle. "To know thyself," was the response. Thi^i is, in fact, the only science in which all ai-e always interested; for, wliile each individual may iiave his favorite occupation, it still remains true of the species, that " The proper study of mankind is man." i "Now for my life," says Sir Thomas Browne, "it is a miracle of thirty years, wliich to relate Avere not a his- Sir Thomas Browne ^ ^^^^. ^ -^^ ^f poetrv, and WOuld SOUn.l quoted. " 1■^ r- i", to common ears like a table. "For the world, I count it not an inn, but an hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in. The world that I regard is myself; it is the microcosm of my own frame that I cast mine eye on ; for the other, I use it but like my globe, and tui-n it round sometimes, for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude ; for I am above Atlas his slioulders. The earth is a point not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heav^enly and celestial part within us. That mass of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind. That surface that tells the heavens it hath an end, cannot per- suade me I have any. I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty. Though the niimber of the ark do measure my bo /-i i i • . . special class of effects. ^f a God being thus a regressive intereiice, from the existence of a special class of eftects to tiie existence of a special character of cause, it is evident, that the whole argument liinges on the fact, — Does a state of things really exist such as is only possible through the agency of a Divine Cause? For if it can be sliown that such a state of things does net really exist, then, our inference to the kind of cause requisite to account for it, is necessarilv null. This being understood, I now ]iroceed to show you that the class of ])ha'nomena which requires that kind of These afforded ex- ^^^^^^ ^^,^ denominate a Deity, is exclusively clusively by the pha;- ... n • nomeua of mind. given 111 the pluBuomena of mind, — that the phenomena of matter, taken by themselves (you will observe the qu:)liiication, taken by themselves), so fir from warranting any inference to the existence of a Goowerful. It is not until the two great attributes of Intelligence and Virtue (and be it observed that vii-tue involves Liberty) — I s.ay, it is not until the two .attriI)Mtes of intelligence and virtue or holines.s, are brought in, th.at (he belief in a primary and omnipo- tent cause becomes the belief in a veritable Divinity. But these latter attributes are not more essential to the divine nature than are the former. For as original and infinite power does not of itself constitute a Go - 1 • ^ • i ' ,. , AVill, — and the assertion ot theism beins: only of a God- ' o J the assertion that the universe is created by intelligence, and governed not only by physical but by moral laws, we have next to consider how we are warranted in these two affirmations, 1°, That intelligence stands first in the absolute order of existence, — in other words, that final preceded efficient causes; and, 2°, That the vmiverse is governed by moral laws. The proof of these two propositions is the proof of a God; and it establishes its foundation exclusively on 1. Is intelligence the phaeiiomena of mind. I shall endeavor, first in the order of o-entlemeu, to show vou this, in regard to both existence? 2 Is the *' . , ^ -i n ' • • universe "overned by these propositions ; but, before considering how moral law ? far the phaenomeiia of mind and of matter do and do not allow us to infer the one position or the other, I must solicit your attention to the characteristic con- trasts which these two classes of phcenomena in themselves exhibit. In the compass of our experience, we distinguish two series of facts, — the facts of the external or material Contrasts of the phie- ^vorld, and the facts of the internal world or nomena of iniuter and ' j^jjjj world ot intelligence, ihese concomitant series of phfenomena are not like streams Avhich merely run parallel to each other; they do not, like the Alplieus and Arethusa, flow on side by side without a commingling of their waters. They cross, they combine, they are interlaced ; but not- withstanding their intimate connection,^ their mutual action and reaction, we are able to discriminate them without difficulty, be- cause they are marked out by characteristic differences. The phaenomena of the material world are subjected to immu- Lect. n. METAPHYSICS. 21 table laws, are produced and reproduced in the same invariable succession, and manifest only the blind force of a mechanical necessity. The pha^nomena of man, are, in part, subjected to the laws of the external universe. As dependent ui)on a bodily organization, as actuated by sensual propensities and animal wants, he belongs to matter, and, in this respect, he is the slave of necessity. But what man holds of matter does not make up his personality. They are his, not he; man is not an organism, — he is an intelli- gence served by organs.' For in man there are tendencies, — there is a law, — which continually urge him to prove that he is more powerful than the nature by which he is surrounded and penetrated. He is conscious to himself of faculties not comprised in the chain of physical necessity, his intelligence reveals ]>rescrip- tive principles of action, absolute and universal, in the Law of Duty, and a liberty capable of carrying that law into effect, in opposition to the solicitations, the impulsions of his matei-ial na- ture. From the coexistence of these opposing forces in man there results a ceaseless struggle between phvsical necessitv and moral liberty ; in the language of Revelation, between the Flesh and the Spirit; and this struggle constitutes at once the distinctive char- acter of humanity, and the essential condition of human develop- ment and virtue. In the facts of intelligence, we thus become aware of an order of existence diametrically in contrast to that displayed to us in the facts of the material universe. There is made known to us an order of things, in which intelligence, by recognizing the luicon- ditional law of duty and an absolute obligation to fulfil it, recog- nizes its own possession of a liberty incompatible with a depend- ence upon fate, and of a power capable of resisting and conquer inff the counteraction of our animal nature. Now, it is oidy as man is a free intelligence, a moral i>. iwcr, that he is created aftef the image of God, and it Consciousness of free- jj^ oulv as a spark of diviuitv glows as the life dom.und of a law of ^^ ^^^;. ,j^^ j^^ ^^ ^j^.^^ ^^.^ ^^^^ ratiouallv believe duty, the conditions of . th- ^ r^ i^ri/^ Theology "^ '^" Intelligent Creator and 3loral (governor of the universe. For, let us sujjpose, tliat in mail intelligence is the proiplnnff. p. 8 — nfTer Platn.] Cf ura, qua; digitodemoiistiari potest. ' — Cicero, I'lato.^c. iVim. p. 1-30, nnd in/ra,p. 114,— Ei> 22 METAPHYSICS. Lect. U the jdiaenomena of matter, — on this supposition, I say, the founda- tions of all religion, natural and revealed, are suhveited.^ The truth of this will be best seen by applying the supposition of the two positions of theism previously stated — viz., that the notion of God necessarily supposes, 1", That in the absolute order of existence intelligence should be first, tliat is, not itself the pro- duct of an unintelligent antecedent; and, 2", That the universe sliould be governed not only by physical but by moral laws. Now, in regard to the former, how can Ave attempt to prove that the universe is the creation of a free original First condition of the • . n- • j. 4^1 * v c ii , . , intelligence, against the counter-position oi the proof of a Deity ,drawu ;ri ' jt^ ^ 1 from Psychology. An- atheist, that liberty is an illusion, and intelli- aiogy between our ex- geiicc, or the adaptation of means to ends, only perience and the abso- J|^^ product of a blind fate? As we kuow no- lute order of existence. '■ i r- ■ ■ • -ic thing of the absolute order of existence in itself, we can only attempt to infer its cliaracter from that of the i)artic- ular order within the s]ihere of oiu* experience, and as we can affirm naught of intelligence and its conditions, except what we may discover from the observation of our own mind.'^, it is evident that we can only analogically carry out into the order of the uni- verse the relation in whicli we find intelligence to stand in the order of the human constitution. If in man intelligence be a free power, — in so far as its liberty extends, intelligence must be independent of necessity and matter ; and a power independent of matter necessarily implies the existence of an immaterial subject, — that is, a spirit. If, then, the original independence of intelli- gence on matter in the human constitution, in other words, if the spirituality of mind in man, be sujiposed a datum of observa- tion, in this datum is also given both the condition and the })roof of a God. For we have only to infer, what analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the same relative Psvcholofrical Mate- . ^, . i-i-aiit- . ,.■ . . supremacy in the universe which it holds in us, rialism : its issue. ^ •' _ _ _ _ _ and the first positive condition of a Deity is established, in the establishment of the absolute ])riority of a free creative intelligence. On the other hand, let us suppose the result of our study of man to be, that intelligence is only a product of matter, only a reflex of organization, such a doctrine would not only aftbrd no basis on which to rest any argument for a God, l)Ut, on the contrary, would j>ositively warrant the atheist in deny- ing his existence. For if, as the materialist maintains, the only intelligence of which Ave have any ex])erience be a consequent of matter, — on this hypothesis, he not only cannot assume this 1 See Discussions, p. 623. — Ed. •♦ Lect. II. METAPHYSICS, 23 order to be revereed in the relations of an intelligence beyond his observation, but, if he argue logically, he must positively conclude, that, as in man, so in tlie universe, the ])luenomena of intelligence or design are only in their last analysis the products of a brute necessity. Psychological materialism, if carried out iully and fiirly to its conclusions, thus inevitably results in theological atheism; as it has been well expressed by Dr. Henry More, uhUks i/i ii/irro- rosino spiritKs, indlus in niacrocosmo Deus} I do not, of course, mean to assert that all materialists deny, or actually disbelieve, a God. For, in very many cases, this would be at once an unmer- ited compliment to their reasoning, and an unmerited reproach to their faith. Such is the manifest dejiendence of our theology on our psy- chology in reference to the first condition of a Second condition of Deity, — tlic absolute priority of a free intclli- t!ic proof of a Deity, ' t> ^ ^ i • • i ^ T, , ", Gfence. fjut tins is i)erhaps even more conspic- (.rawu from Psychol- ° _ _ ' ' i _ (,_,y. uous in relation to the second, that the uni- verse is governed not merely by physical but ity moral laws, for God is only God inasmuch as he is the Moral < rovernor of a Moral World. Our interest also in its establishment is incomjmrably greater, for while a proof that the universe is the Avork of an omnipotent intel- ligence, gratifies only our speculative curiosity, — a proof that there is a holy- leijislator by whom goodness and felicity will be ullimatelv l)rouiiht into accordance, is necessary to satisfy both our intel- left and our heart. A God is, indeed, to us only of practical interest, inasmuch as he is the condition of our immortality. Now, it is self-evident, in the first ])lare, that, if there be no mor;d world, there can l)e no moral governor of such a worM ; an;uu wliollv (Icnendent on Psvcholoccy ; for, witli the ju'oof of the moral nature of man, stands oi- falls the proof of the existence of a Dcitv. 1 a. Anlidolus wtversus Alhfismum, lib. iii. 1079); and the Author's Discutsions, p. 788 O. 16, (Opera Omnia, vol. ii. p. 143, Londini, — Eu 24 METAPHYSICS. Lect. IL But in Avhnt does the cliaracter of man as a moral agent consist? Man is a moral agent only as he is account- Wherein the moral jj],|g f^^. jjjg actions, — in other Avords, as he is agency of man cou- -i • ^ r- ■ ii ixi-i* ..°j^ the object of praise or blame; ana this lie is^ only inasmuch as he has prescribed to him a rule of duty, and as he is able to act, or not to act, in conform- ity with its precepts. The possibility of morality thus depends on the possibility of liberty ; for if man be not a free agent, he is not the author of his actions, and has, therefore, no responsi- bility, — no moral personality at all. Now the study of Philosophy, or mental science, operates iu three ways to establish that assurance of human riiiiosophy operates liberty, wliich is necessary for a rational belief in tlitce ways.in estab- • i . • i -i j ■' „ in our own moral nature, in a moral worlds lisliing assurance of , imman liberty. '"n^*^ ^^ 3. moral ruler of that world. In the first place, an attentive consideration of the ph£enomena of mind is requisite in order to a luminous and dis- tinct apprehension of liberty as a feet or datum of intelligence. For though, without philosophy, a natural conviction of free agency lives and works in the recesses of eveiy human' mind^ it requires a process of philosophical thought to bring this conviction to clear consciousness and scientific certainty. In the second place, a jjro- found philosophy is necessary to obviate the ditficulti<3S which meet us when we attempt to exjjlain the possibility of -this fact, and to prove that the datum of liberty is not a mere illusion. For though an unconquerable feeling compels us to recognize ourselves as accountable, and therefore free, agents, still, when we attempt to realize in thought how the fact of our liberty can be, we soon find that this altogether transcends our understand- ing, and that every effort to bring the fact of liberty witliin tlie compass of our conceptions, onl}^ results in the substitution in its place of some more or less disguised form of necessity. For, — if I may be allowed to use expressions which many of you can- not be supposed at present to understand, — Ave are only able to conceive a thing, inasmuch as we conceive it under conditions ; while the possibility of a free act supposes it to be an act whicli is not conditioned or determined. The tendency of a superficial philosophy is, therefore, to deny the fact of liberty, on the prin- ciple that what cannot be conceived is impossible. A deeper and more comprehensive study of the facts of mind overturns this conclusion, and disproves its found.'i^on. It shoAvs that, — so far from the principle being true, that Avhat is inconceivable is im- possible, — on the contrary, all that is conceivable is a mean be- Lect. n. METAPHYSICS. 25 tween two contradictory extremes, both of which are inconceiva- ble, but of which, as mutually re])ugnant, one or the other must be true. Thus philosophy, in demonstrating that the limits of thought are not to be assumed as the limits of possibility, while it admits the weakness of our discursive intellect, reestablishes the authority of consciousness, and vindicates the veracity of our primitive convictions. It proves to us, from the very laws of mind, that while we can never understand lu.nf! an}' original datum of intelligence is possible, we liave no reason from this inability to doubt that it is true. A learned ignorance is thus, the end of philosophy, as it is the beginning of theology.* In the third place, the study of mind is necessary to counter- balance and correct the influence of the study of matter; and this utility of Metaphysics rises in proportion to the i)rogress of the natural sciences, and to the greater attention which they engross. An exclusive devotion to physical pursuits, exerts an evil inflti ence in two ways. In the first place, it diverts Twofold evils of ex- ^^^^^^^ .^^ ^^^^j^^ ^^ ^^^^ phteuomeua of moral elusive physical study. . ' liberty, which are revealed to us in the recesses of the human mind alone; and it dis(|ualifies from appreciating the iini)ort of these phenomena, even if presented, by leaving un- cultivated the finer power of psychological reflection, in the exclu- sive exercise of the faculties employed in tlie easier and more amusing observation of the external Avorld. In the second place,, by exhibiting merely the ])luenomena of matter and extension, it habituates us only to the contemplation of an order in whic-h everything is determined by the laws of a blind or mechanical necessity. Now, what is the inevitable tendency of this one-sided and exclusive study? That the student becomes a materialist, if he speculate at all. For, in tlie first j)lace, lie is fainili:ir with the obtrusive facts of necessity, and is unaccustomed to develop into consciousness tlie more recondite facts of li))eity ; lie is, there- fore, disposed to disbelieve in the existence of j)haMiomena whose reality he may deny, and whose possibility he cannot understand.. At the same tinu', the lov^e of unity, and tlu' jiliilosopliical ]iresum])- tion against tlie multiplication of essences, de- rhysicai study in its tofinine him to reject tlie assumption of a second, iiifmicy not iiiutiTlal- i i • i i j^j,,„ and that :m hypothetical, sul)st;ince, — ignorant as he is of the reasons by whicli that assuni].- tion is legitimated. In the *»iif;iiu'y of science, this tendency ot 1 See Discussions, ji fM — K.D 26 METAPHYSICS. Lect. II. pli}sieal study was not experienced. Wlieu men first turned their attention on the 2)iiaenomena of nature, every event was viewed as a miracle, for every effect was considered as the operation of an intelligence. God M'as not exiled from the universe of mat- ter; on tiie contrary, he was multiplied in proportion to its phae- nomena. As science advanced; the deities were gradually driven out ; and long after the sublunary world had been disenchanted, they Avere left for a season in possession of the starry heavens. The movement of the celestial bodies, in which Kepler still saw the agency of a free intelligence, was at length by Xewton re- solved into a few mathsmatical principles ; and at last even the irregulai-ities which Newton was compelled to leave for the mirac- ulous correction of the Deity, have been proved to require no sujicrnatural interposition; for La Place has shown that ail con- tingencies, past and future, in the heavens, find their explanation in the one fundamental law of gravitation. J>Ht the very contemplation of an order and adaptation so aston- isliing, joined to the knowledge that this order and adaptation are the necessary results of a brute mechanism, — when acting upon minds which have not looked into themselves tor the light of wlii('h the world without can only aftbrd them the reflection, — flir from elevating them more than any other aspect of external crea- tion to that inscrutal)le Being who reigns beyond and above the universe of nature, tends, on the contrary, to imjiress on them, W'ith i)eculiar force, the conviction, that as the mechanism of nature can explain so much, the mechanism of nature can ex- plain all. "Wonder,'' says Aristotle, "is the first cause of philosophy:"^ but in the discovery that all existence is but li :iii existence be mechaiiis-m, the consummation of science would but mecliauism, pliiio- , . . . „ , . , , . , . , . be an extinction of the very interest from which sopliicul interest ex- •' tinguished. it Originally sju'ang. "Even the gorgeous ma- jesty of the heavens," says a religious philoso- pher, "the olject <.)f a kneeling adoration to ;ui infant world, sub- dues no more the mind of him Avho comprehends the one mechan- ical law by which the j)lanetary systems move, maintain their motion, and even originallv form themselves. lie no lonsj^er won- ders at the object, infinite as it always is, but at the human intel- lect alone which in a Copernicus, Kepler, Gassendi, Newton, and La Place, was able to transcend the object, by science to termi- nate the miracle, to reave the heaven of its divinities, and to » 1 Metajihysira. book i 2. 9 Com;):ire I'lato, T/ifrtetii^. \>. 155. — Kd. Lect. n. METAPHYSICS. 27 exorcise the universe. But even this, the only admiration of which our intelligent faculties are now ca})able, would vanish, were a future Hartley, Darwin, Condiilac, or lionnet, to succeed in display- ing to us a mechanical system of the human mind, as com])re- hensive, intelligible, and satisfactory as the Newtonian mecha- nism of the heavens."^ To this testimony I may add that, should Physiology ever suc- ceed in reducing the facts of intelligence to Phrenoinena of matter, Philosophy would be subverted in the subversion of its three great objects, — God, Free-Will, and Immortality. True wisdom would then consist, not in sjjeculation, but in repressing thouglit during our brief transit from nothingness to nothingness. For why? Philosophy Avould have become a meditation, not merely of death, but of annihilation ; the precept, Kno^o thyself, would have been replaced by the terrific oracle to Oedipus — " Miiy'st thou ne'er know the truth of ■\vhat thou art;" and the final recompense of our scientific curiosity would be wailing, deeper than Cassandra's, for the ignorance that saved us from despair. TJie views which I have now taken of the respective influence of the sciences of mind and of matter in relation Coincidence of the xo our rcligious bclietj are those which have view, here given, with .^^.._^^ deliberately adopted bv tlie profbundest those of previous piii- "^ ' ' ^.^ lo.f.j.hprs. thinkers, ancient and modern. V\ ere 1 to quote to von the testimonies that crowd on mv recol- lection to the effect that ignorance of Self is ignorance of God, I should make no end, for this is a truth proclaimed by Jew and Gentile, Christian and iVIohammedan. I shall content myself with adducing three passages from three philosophers, whicli I select, both as articulatelv confirming all that i have now advanced, and because there are not, in the Avholc liistory of speculation, three autlioritics on the point in (jucstion more entitled to res])cct. The first quotation is from Plato, and it corroi)oratcs the doc- trine I liave maintained in reg.ard to the condi- tmns ot a God, and ot our knowledge of Ins existence. "The cause," he says, "of all impiety and irreligion among men is, that reversing in themselves the relativi- subordi- nation of mind and body, they have, in like manner, in tlie uni- verse, made that to l)e first whuh is second, and that to be second 1 Jacobi, Werhe, vol. ii. p. 52-54. l^uoted in Disciiffioiif, \> .312. — Ed. 28 METAI'IIYSICS. Lkct. Ii. which is first ; for wliilo, in tlie generation of all things, intel- ligence and final causes })recede matter and efficient causes, they, on the contrary, have viewed matter and material things as abso- lutely prior, in the order of existence, to inlelligonce and design; and thus departing from an original error in relation to them- selves, they have ended in the subversion of the Godhead."' The second quotation is from Kant; it finely illustrates the intiu- ences of material and mental studies bv con- Kant. ■ . . * 1 , trasting them in reference to the verv noblest object of either, and the passage is woitliy of your attention, not only' for the soundness of its doctrine, but for the natural and unsought-for sublimity of its expression : " Two things there are^ which, the oftener and tlie more steadfastly we consider, fill the mind with an ever new, an ever rising admiration and reverence; — fh(i STARRY HEAVEN obom, the MORAL LAAV v/dhui. Of neither am I compelled to seek out the reality, as veiled in darkness, or only to conjecture the possibility, as beyond the hemisphere of my knowlerimitive liberty. Christianity thus, by universal confession, supposes as a condition the moral nature of its object ; and if some individual tlieologians be found who have denied to man a higher liberty than a machine, this is only another example of the truth, that there is no opinion which has been una- ble to find not only its champions but its martyi-s. The diifer- ences which divide the Christian churches on this question, regard only the liberty of man in certain particular relations, for fatalism,, or a negation of human responsibility in general, is equally hostile to the tenets of the Calvinist and Arminian. In these circumstances it is evident, that he who disbelieves the moral agency of man must, in consistency with that opinion, disbe- lieve Christianity. And therefore inasmuch as Philosophy, — the Philosophy of Mind, — scientifically establishes the proof of human liberty, philosophy, in this, as in many other relations not now to be considered, is the true preparative and best aid of an enlightened Christian Tlieology. LECTURE Til. THE NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. I HAVE been in the custom of delivering sometimes togetlier, more frequently in alternate years, two systematic courses of lec- tures, — the one on Psychology, that is, the science which is con- versant about the phamomena of mind in general, — the otlier on Logic, that is, the science of the laws regulating the manifestation and legitimacy of the highest faculty of Cognition, — Thought, strictlv so denominated — the facultv of Relations, — tlie Under- standing proper. As first, or initiative, courses of philosophy, — each has its peculiar advantages; and I know not, in truth, Avhich I should recommend a student to commence with. What, however, I find it expedient to premise to each is an Introduction, in which the nature and general relations of ])hilosoj)hy arc explained, and a summary view taken of the faculties (particularly the Cognitive faculties), of mind. In the ensuing course, wo shall be occupied with the General Philosojjhy of Mind. You are, then, about to commence a course of ])hilo.sophical dis- cii)line, — for Psvchology is i)reeminently a phil- Wliat riiilosoiihy is. ,. , . " t • i ^ -i <• osophical science. It is therefore proi)er, before proceeding to a consideration of the speciiil objects of our course, that you should obtain at least a general notion of what philosophy is. But in affonliug you this infonuaticju, it is evident that there lie considerable dilhculties in the way. For tiie delinitiou, and the divisions of philosophy are the results of a lofty generalization from particulars, of which ))articulars you are, or must be jiresumed to be, still ignorant. Yon ciiniiot, theretbre, il is iii.niifi'st, be made adequali'lv to comi)rehen(l, in tlic commencement of your jihilo- sophical studies, notions which these studies themselves are in- tended to enable you to understand. But although you cannot at once obtain a full kiu)wledge of the nature of ])hilos()phy, it is desirable that you should be enabled to form at least some vague conception of the road you are about to travel, and of the ])oint to which it will conduct you. I must, therefore, beg that y<.u will, for S2 M1:T APII YSICS. Lkct. IIL till' }»resent, hypotlietieally believe, — believe upon authority, — what you may not now adequately understand ; but this only to the end that you may not hereafter be under the necessity of tak- ing any conclusion upon trust. Nor is this temporary exaction of credit peculiar to philosophical education. In the order of nature, belief always precedes knowledge, — it is the condition of instruc- tion. The child (as observed by Aristotle) must believe, in order that he may learn ; ^ and even the primary facts of intelligence, — the facts Avliich precede, as they afford the conditions of, all knowl- edge, — would not be original were they revealed to us under any other form than that of natural or necessary beliefs. Without further jireamble, therefore, I shall now endeavor to afford you some general notion of what philosophy is.^ In doing this, there are two questions to be answered: — 1st, What is the meaning of the name f and, 2d, wo qnts loii!- What is the meanino' of the thinq ? An answer Tjardiiig rinlosopliy- p _ «^ _ to the former question is afforded in a nominal deiinition of the term loliilosophyy and in a history of its employ- ment and application. In regard to the etymological signification of the word, you are aware that Philosophy is a term of Greek origin Pbiiosopby - the _ ^,j^^ j^ .^ ,^ compound of t^iAos, a lover or friend, and aocfiLa,'^ loisdom — speculative wis- dom.. Philosophy is thus, literally, c< love of wisdom. But if the grammatical meaning of the word be unambiguous, the history of its apjilication is, I think, involved in considerable doubt. Accord- ing to the commonly received account, the tomn.only referred (Jesiguatiou of philosopher {lover or SuitOr of to Pythajjoras. • ? x « * i i r j / vnsdom) was nrst assumcfl and applied by Pythagoras ; whilst of the occasion and circumstances of its assump- tion, we have a story by Cicero,^ on the authority of Heraclides Ponticus f and by Diogenes Laertius, in one place^,'"' on the authority 1 Siiph. Kfiich. c. 2. — Ed. oti ou to, avbpdnTi.va, aya^a ^r\TOV(Ti.v. 'H 2 On comprehension of Philosophy inter 54 0pi„jj Lib. 1. 12. Saifj.oyta flStvai avTovs her. Pythagoras was a native of Samos, and flourished about GO years before the advent of Christ,'' — about 130 years Rests on .IomMIuI y^^f^^yQ ^]^q jjirtij of Pl;,to. HeracUdes and Sosi- authority. , , n .i • . -^ .^. • crates, the two vouchers or this story, — it Sosi- crates be indeed a voucher, — lived long subsequently to the age ■of Pythagoras; and the- former is, moreover, confessed to have been an egregious fabulist. From llie piiiicipal circumstances of 1 Lib. vili. 8. B- ^- 640-610, in the times of Pol)-crati>.s and 2 See Menage, Commentary on Laertim, Taniuinins Supcrbns (Clinton, F. H. lAQ.) viii. 8. JI'" l>irtli is usually placeil in the 49tli Olym- " The exact dates of the birth and dciitli of piad ( B. ('. 5841. See Brandis, Gf$rh. ,hr Vftil. P>-thagora.s are uncertain. Nearly all author- vol. i. l> 422; Zeller, Vhil. drr Griechen., vol. l ities, however, are agreed that he '• flourished" p. 217, 2a ed. — Ed. 34 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. III. his life, mentioned by Laertius after older authors, and from the fragments we possess of the works of Ileraclides, — in short, from all opinions, ancient and modern, we learn that he ^ was at once credulous and deceitful, — a dupe and an impostor. The anecdote, therefore, rests on very slender authority. It is probable, I think, that Socrates was the first who adopted, or, at least, the first who familiarized, the expression.^ It was natural that Socrates pobabiy the j^g should be anxious to Contradistinguish him- flrst to familiarize the -i/. /> ^i o i • ^ / « i ^ ' i v sell irom the hopnists, (oi 0-0901, m o-o^torai, sophistae), literally, the loise men f and no term could more appropriately ridicule the arrogance of these pretend- ers, or afford a happier contrast to their haughty designation, than that of philosopher (/. e., the lover of wisdom) ; and, at the same time, it is certain that the substantives ^iXoo-o<^ta and <^iXoo-o^os, first appear in the writings of the Socratic school.* It is true, in- deed, that the verb <{)LXo(Tocf>€Lv is found in Hero- ^^xoaoLkoa-o<^iu)v yrjv TToAA^v ^ewpiTjs etvEKev eirfXyjXv^a^). It is, therefore, not impossible that, before the time of Socrates, those who devoted themselves to the pursuit of the higher branches of knowledge, were occasionally designated pliilosophers: but it is far more probable that Socrates and his school first appropriated the term as a distinctive a])pellation ; and that the word ph'dosopliy^ in consequence of this apju-opriation, came to be employed for the complement of all higher knowledge, and, more especially, to denote the science conversant about the princij)les or causes of existence. The term philosophy^ I may notice, Avhich was originally assumed in modesty, soon lost its Socratic and etymological signification, and returned to the meaning of os ^j^^^ g^^^- ^^v ^^~ ^,^^ ^^.^^^^. ^j, 5^ ^ lao^eos of Hippocrates. lU.t this occurs in ^,^^^„^^^ ^ to.o'CtoV tc /iSAAoV te &^ oneof the Ilippocraticwritniffs which IS man- , - < / \ > ■, ' " ' ' , - , , avTcu apuoTTOt Kal eu.fj.6\((TTep(i>s, « Yoi. ifcstlv spurious, and of date sub.scquent to „ ' , ^, , ■ \- /• *i i -i •' » ' ' Compare also the descniition ot the philoso- the father of medicine. Hippocrates was an . ■ ^i c. ■ oa^ „ >■> ' ' pher 111 the Si/mposiu>n. p. 204, as ufratv ffo- early contemporary of .Socrates [Theexpre.s- j, - \ > a! - t- •^ ' ■ , , , ' Descaites, Priiicipia, Epistola Autboris. est, (lit a veteribus pliilosopliis delinitiim ('<". Wolf. Phil. Rat. § 33. — Ed. est), reruni diviiianim et btiniaiiaiuin, causa- " roiulillac, L'Art de Raisnnner. Cniirs. torn. rum<|»e qiiibiis ha' res contiiieiiliir, scieiitia. iii. p. 3, (ed. 17S0). Cf ("lenieiis Alex.. .'?trom. Cf. Ttisc. QiiiTst. iv. 26, v. 3. De Fin ii. 12; viii. 8, p. 782. f) Si ri)u (j>i\oa6iav, &(rK7]- osop/iir, Eiiileitiiiig, § 13 — Eo. iTtv rfxvv^ 4niTriSfi6v. Cf. I'lato, Plupilnis, 9 Kant, Krilik der reinen Vemunft, Method- p. 25!); iJr/). vi. p. 481). — flu. enlebiv, c. 3; Krug, Pliilosophisehes Leriknn, ■'! Ilobbes, Conipitlalio sife Loglcn, c. 1; iii. p. 213. — En. Philosopliia est (•irrcfuuni sive riKriionieiioiii ■'• Knig, Philosophisrhes Lerikim. iii. p. 21.3. ex conceptis coruni causis seu generationibus, The dclinition is sub.stnntially Kicbte's. See et rui-sus generafionum qua; esse possunt, ex bis Grundlage der Gesanimten Wissensehn/tH' cognitis cfTectibus \kv rectani ratioeiiiationem lehren. {Wrrkr, i p. 2S.T); and bis Ztccile Einlei- acquisita cogiiitio. Cf Arist. Mlaph. i. 1. tung in die \Vissenseliaft!iehrt,{\Virkr, i. ^. Mh-* T^v ovofiaCoixfvriv crocpiav iTtpX to irpdrra — El>. aSVia Kol Toy apxas xmoXaiji^ivovffi irivrts. H Eicbte, Vber den Begriff der V.'i%<.e>'rhn.'':t — Ed. l,hrt. I, 1 ( Werke. i 45 )— Ed S6 METAPHYSICS. Lect. III. absolute : — The science of the absolute indifference of the ideal and real- — or, The identity of identity and non-identity, etc, etc;' All such definitions are (if not })Ositively erroneous), either so vague that they afford no precise knowledge of their object; or they are so partial, that they exclude what they ought to comprehend ; or they are of such a nature that they supply no preliminary informa- tion, and are only to be understood, (if ever,) after a knowledge has been acquired of that which they ]»rofess to exjdain. It is, in- deed, })erhaps impossible, adequately to define i)lulosophy. For what is to be defined comprises what cannot be included in a single definition. For ])hiloso])hy is not regarded from a single point of view, — it is sometimes considered as theoretical, — that is, in relation to man as a thinking and cognitive intelligence; some- times as practical, — that is, in relation to man as a moral agent ; — and sometimes, as comprehending both theory and practice. Again, }>hilosophy may either be regarded objectively, that is, as a coni}»lement of truths known ; or subjectively, — that is, as a habit or quality of the mind knowing. In these circumstances, I shall not attempt a definition of philosophy, but shall endeavor to accom- plish the end Avhich every definition proposes, — make you under- stand, as precisely as the imprecise nature of the object-matter per- mits, what is meant by philosophy, and what are the sciences it properly comprehends wnthin its sphere. As a matter of history I may here, however, parenthetically men- tion, that in Greek antiquity there were in all Definitions in Greek ^j^ definitions of philosophy which obtained antiquity. celebrity. On these collectively there are ex- tant various treatises. Among the comnrentators of Aristotle, that of Ammonius Hermioe* is the oldest; and the fullest is one by an anonymous author, lately published by Dr. Cramer in the fourth volume of his Anecdota Grmea Parisiensui.^ Of the six, the first and second define philosophy from its object matter, — that which it is about ; the third and fourth, from its end, — that for the sake of which it is ; the fifth, fi-om its relative preeminence ; and the sixth, from its etymology. 1 Schelling, Vom Ich nls Princip der Philoso- mentarius, p. 1. (ed. Aid.) Given in part by phie, S§ 6, 9 : Krug, Lexilcon, iii. p. 213. — Ed. Brandis, Scholia in Aris/otelem, p. 9. — Ed. 5 P. 389. Extracted also in part by Brandis, a Schelling, Bnmo, p. 205 (2d ed.) Cf. Pldl- g^^^n^ ,•„ ^^i,t„t,i,„,^ p. g. T,,ig commentary osophie der Natur, Einleitung, p. 64, and Zus- jg conjectured by Val. Ro.se ( De Aristoteli.s Lib- atzsurEinleitung,p.65-88(2ded.)-ED. ^„„,„, (^j-„^ ^, Auctoritau, p. 243) to be the 3 Hegel, Logik, ( Werke, iii. p. 64.) -Ed. work ofOlympiodorus The definitions quoted ^ ' ^ ' in the text are given by Tzetzes, ChUiads, x. 4 Atnmonii in quinqus voces Porphyrii Co7n- 600. — El>. Lkct. III. METAPHYSICS. 37 The first of these definitions of ])hilosophy is, — "the knowledge of things existent as existent," — (yvwo-is twv ovtwv rj om-a.y The second is — "the knowledge of things divine and liunian, — " (yvwo-ts Seiiov kol dv^ptoTTiVwi/ Trpay/xarwv.)" These are botli from the object-matter; and both were reiorred to Pytliagoras. The third and fourth, the two definitions of philoso])hy from its end, are, again, both taken from Plato. Of these the third is, — " philoso])hy is a meditation of death," (/xeAc'rT; Savdrov ;)^ the fourth — "philosophy is a resembling of the Deity in so far as that is com- petent to man, (6/jtotiuo-is ^eciJ Kara to Bvvarov dv^pojTru).)^ The fifth, that from its preeminence, was borrowed from Aris- totle, and defined ])hilosophy "tlie art of arts, and science of sciences," {r^xfi] t€;(Vwv koI l-n-Krrrjixr] iTrKTT-qjxwv.)' Finally, the sixth, that from the etymology, was like the first and second, carried u]) to Pythagoras — it defined philosophy "the love of wisdom," (cfiiXta (TOi\oaoat <'f- Elk. Nic. vi. 7: SrjXof Stj t) aicpt^ttTTaTri H(\fTU)(Ta (JaSi'ois" ^ ou rovr' tiu (tti nf\fr-q &J' Tdji/ iincrrrifiwv fit) rj (TO(pia. Tin' iu';in-st bafdrov ; <'!• Cicero Tiisr (luasi. i. ;»; Mac- approach to a deliuition of I'liilosopliy in the robins, In Som. Scijnonis. i. 13: Dainascenns, jii„„j,^,j,,i„ jg ,„ a mhior, c. 1. OpSfws 8' ^x*. DiaUrtUa, c. 3. - Ed. ^^j ^^ ^a}.f7(rSiai t^i> vi'aT6i'. — Ed. 7 Anon, npiid Cnimer. Anecdoia, iv. p. 318; .". Tlie aiKinynmiis coninientfltor quotes this Brinulis, Srhnlin, p. 7. — Ed. as a itiis.sa^i' from the Mtnphysits. It does a So ijitoled h_v the commentator: hut the not occur literally, but the .sen.-;e is substan- pa.ssage occurs in the P/irr'/o. p. 61. Kal i^jioi tially that expres-sed in Book i. c 2. A»fpi- ovrw t5 ivinrvwv Sirtp (irpaTTOv, tovto iiri- /SfVraTai S* twv iiri(TT-r)fio!V ot /uaAitrra riav KfKtvfw, u.ov(Tikt]V iroitTv, is ^i\offOi-oduct of, experience or observation, and, in (•(jutrast to another ti'rni afterwards to be explained, is now tech- nically in general use throuiih every other country of Europe. AVere tliere any other word to be found of a corres])ondnig signifi- cation in English, it wotdd perhaps, in consequence of the by-mean- ing attached to empirical, be ex])edient not to em])loy this latter. But there is not. K.vper'u'ntial is not in common use, and experi~ mental only designates a certain kind of cxperienci' — viz. that in ■wliich tlie fu-t obseived has l)een brought about l)y a certain inten- tit>nal preiirrangement of its coefficients. I>ut this by the way. Ketni'iiing, then, from our digression : Historical or emjtirical kn()wledge is simpl}' the knowledge that something is. Were we to use the exjiression, the kiioirledf/f- t/uit^ it would sound awkward and unusual in our modern languages. In Greek, the most ])liilo- sophical of all tongues, its parallel, however, A\as familiarly em- ployed, more es])ecially in the Aristotelic ))hilos()])hy,'' in contrast to another knowledge of which we are about to speak. It was cahcd the to ot(, that is, »; yroJo-i? ort errrir.^ I sliouM notice, that 1 See Galfii. De Striix, c. 1. and the Ihfini- taa rhf apidfibv ofTairep ^Trimdufda. Ztj- tioms Mff/im- and Inumliiriio uii M>-,liruf, as- Tovfjifv 5e Tfrrapa, rh on, rh Sioti, ti tan, cribed to tlip sanio author; Cclsus. De Re rl iffTw. Tliesu wurc di.Uiiiguislii-d by tlie Mf.hm^l'rmi.; Dan. Lc (lore. Hhtohe rir la i^njjp losicians ns the ^i^Uionrs unbiUs and Mc,/ern,e, part ii., lib. ii , ch. 1 - lib iv . ch. „.,.,^. ,„„„„,. ^....u.^^^a quoJ fit, n.r ,i,, an s,l, a Le ("lore, m^mirr de la Mc'Ifrhr. part ii.. < Tliis cxpresfion i:i Latin, at U-a.!oluti'ly barbarous, ean only bo tran>- 3 See Aniil. Post. ii. 1 Ta {^■qrovutvd icrriv lated va-jiioly by au accu.hy is the knoAvledge of effects in their causes, the tendency of ]»hiloso]ihy is ever uj^Avards; and philosophy can, in thought, in theory, only be viewed as accomplishey and Sirpeanfs Method to Scientf, I'reface. p Bacon, and flioii^ili now obsolete, sliould ln' 2;">. p. lilti cf /;o<«ih/. — En. revived, as, without it, we are compelled to •_' Wolf, Philosn/Ma Hatioiialif, j 6; Kant, borrow cogrJiioiis to express its import.]— Kriiik tier ^i Jen V>riitin/l, Methodeulehre, c Oral Inliriioliiiion. [See Bacon's A'lvnnr. merit 3. — Ed. of Ltaniitig, p. 170, ( Wurks. vol. ii., ed. Mout.); •" Arist. Annl. Post. ii. 1. - Ed. 42 mi:t A PHYSICS. Lect. IIL on which all other causes depend, — have been attained and under- stood.^ But, in the second jjlace, as every eifect is only produced hy the concurrence of at least two causes, (and by cause, be it observed, I mean everything without which the effect could not be realized), and as these concurring or coefficient causes, in fact, constitute the effect, it follows, that the lower we descend in the series of causes, the more conii>lex will be the jjroduct; and that the higher we ascend, it will be the more simple. Let us take, for example, a neutral salt. This, as you probably know, is the product — the combination of an alkali and an acid. Now, considering the salt as an effect, what are the concurrent causes, — the co-efficients, — which constitute it what it is '? These are, Jirst^ the acid, with its affinity to the alkali; secondly^ the alkali, M'ith its affinity to the acid; and thirdly, the translating force (perhaps the human liand) Avhich made their affinities available, by bringing the two bodies Avithin the s]>here of mutual attraction. Each of these three con- currents must be considered as a partial cause ; for, abstract any one, and the effect is not produced. Now, these three j)artial •causes are each of them again effects; but effects evidently less com])lex than the effect Aviiich they, by their concurrence, consti- tuted. But each of these three constituents is an effect; and there- fore to be analyzed into its causes ; and. these causes again into others, until the ])rocedure is checked by our inability to resolve the last constituent into simj^ler elements. But, though thus unable to caiTy our analysis beyond a limited extent, we neither conceive, nor are we able to conceive, the constituent in which our anal- ysis is aiTCsted, as itself anything but an effect. We therefore carry on the analysis in imagination ; and as each step in the pro- cedure carries us from the more com|)lex to the more simple, and, consequently, nearer to unity, we at last arrive at that unity itself, — at that ultimate cause Avhich, as ixltimate, cannot again be con- ceived as an effect." Philosophy thus, as the knowledge of effects in their causes, nec- essarily tends, not towards a plurality of ultimate or first causes, but towards one alone. This first cause, — the Creator, — it can 1 Arist. ^naZ. Posr. i. 24. "En ^e'xpi toutou forent relations. What is called the ultimate fTjToCjuej/ rb hia ti, /col rdre olofx^a (ISfvai, cause in ascending from effects to causes,— orav f^n ^ on tj &\\o rodro i) yivAfifvov ^ *''»* ''"• "' *he rcfrressive order, is called the of TfAo's yap koI irepai rh iaxarov i^Srj ^^^^ '='>"*''' '^ descending from causes' to ef- ovTws iariv. C{. Mftaph.i.2: Su yap rav- fects.— that is, in the progres.sive order. _ ~ / • - > ' ' 7 This synonymous mcanins of the terms ulti- ^faip-rrriHriv — Ed "^'**'-' ""^ Primary it is important to recollect, 2 I may notice that an ultimate cause, and ^"\ *'""'<^ ''"°''''' "'*' '" '"'>' common us. in « first cause, are the same, but viewed in dif- P'"'osophy. l.KCT. III. -METAPHYSICS. 43 indeed never reach, as an object of immediate knowledge ; but, as the convergence towards iinity in the ascending I'hiiosophy neces- ^^^^^^ j^ manifest, in so far as that series is within sarily tends towards a first cause. '^"1' ^'^^^^'i ^^^^ ^s it is. even impossible for the mind to sni)j)ose the conA'ergencc not continuous and complete, it follows, — uidess all analogy be rejected, — unless our intelligence be declared a lie, — that we must, ])hilosophically believe in that ultimate or primary unity which, in our 23i'esent existence, we are not destined in itself to apprehend. Such is philosophical knowledge in its most extensive signifi- cation ; and, in this signification, all the sciences, occupied in the ]-esearch of causes, may be viewed as so many branches of phil- osophy. There is, however, one section of these sciences Avhich is denom- inated philosophical by preeminence ; — sciences, .Sciences denorai- ^^.j,i^.|j ^|,p ^^^.j^^ philosophy exclu.sively denotes, iiated philosophical by ^ -, • ■ t . * -n^, pro^minence. ^^'^1^'" employed lu propriety and rigor. ^A liat these sciences are, and why the term ])hilosoi)hy has been specially limited to them, T shall now enrimary jjroblcin of philosophv I See riato. Tlifiriftiis, p. 1.52: Arist. Mr- tis rocipitur in pnticntcm ficrinulnm niodum tnpli. x.(\. — Rd. luitii'iilis. /ij^/. part i. <.>. 14, art. 1. .'^ciontin •-' Hopfliius. De Consol. Phil. v. I'rosa iv. est ."iceiindiiin nuxluni copnosconti.x. Scitnni Onineonini ()Uod cojrn<).>icifnr. non fccnniiiini enini est in scieute secundum modnm scientis. 8ui vim, sed .secundeni a^noscoiitiiim i)otius Cliauvin gives the words of the text. Se* comprehenditur facultatem. Proclus in P/fi/. Lexicon PhiloanpUicum, ttri. Finiias. See also Piirart ot the phil- osophy of mind, which is conversant with the phaenomena of feel- ing. Religion, Theology, in fine, is not independent of the same philosophy. For as God only exists for us a» Theology dependent ^^^^ ^^^^.^ faculties capable of apprehending his on study of mind. *(. ^ ir-ii- i- i i . existence, and ot lulnlhng his behests, nay, as the -phenomena from Avhich we are warranted to infer his being are wholly mental, the examination of these faculties and of these phae- nomena is, consequently, the jtrimary condition of every sound theology. In short, the science of mind, whether considered in itself, or in relation to the other branches of our knowledge, consti- tutes the principal and most imjiortant object of philosoj^hy, — con- stitutes in ])ropriety, with its suit of dependent sciences, philosojihy itself.' The limitation of the term Philosophy^ to the sciences of mind, 1 Cf. Cousin, Cotirs de V HLstoire de la Phil. Mod , Prem. Ser. torn, ii.; Programme de la Premiere Partie du Cours. — Ed. J.KCT. Ill, METAPHYSICS. 45 when not expressly extended to the otlier branches of science, has been always that generally prevalent ; — yet it must be confessed that, in this country, the word is applied to sub- Misapplication of y.^.^^ ^^-itij ^vhich, on the continent of Euroi)e, it the term Philosophy . i •,. • i ttt- i t t in this country ^^ rarely, II ever, associated. With us the word philosophy, taken by itself, does not call up the precise and limited notion Mhich it does to a German, a Hol- lander, a Dane, an Italian, or a Fivnchman ; and we are obliireA to say the philosophy of mind, if Ave do not wish it to be A'agnely extended to the sciences conversant with the pha3nomena of mat- ter. We not only call Physics by the name of Natural l^hiloso- Yihy, but every mechanical process has with us its })hilosophy. ^Ve have books on the i)hilosophy of ^Manufactures, the i)hilos()phy of Agriculture, the i)hilosophy of Cookery, etc. In all this avc are tlie ndicule of other nations. Socrates, it is said, brought doM'ii philos- ophy from the clouds, — the English have degraded her to the kitchen ; and this, our prostitution of the term, is, by foreigners, alleged as a significant indication of the low state of the mental sciences in Britain.' From what has been said, you Avill, without a definition, be able to form at least a general notion of what is meant by philos- ophy. In its more extensive signification, it is equivalent to a knowledge of things by their causes, — and this is, in fact, Aris- totle's definition ; ' while, in its stricter meaning, it is confined to the sciences which constitute, or hold immediately of, the science of mind. 1 See Hegel, Werke, vi. 13; .xiii. 72; Scheid- vTroKati^duovffi Tramts . . . on /uer oZv r\ \vT,Encydop.tler Pliilnsnphi,,\.\i.2',. — ¥.T>. croOia irtpl rivas cuTtas Kol apxds iffrm 2 Metap/i. V. 1: irucra (iTi(TT-t]^ii) SiavorjriKri f-niffTrtixr\, StjAo*". Eth. Nic. vi. 7: St? &pa irtpl aiTias koI it.pxds iariv ^ a.Kpi^((TT(pas rhi/ T\T(ov, riTfoV TrdvTcosSe (!>i\- qucr de la pliilo.sophie, c'est vraiment phil- o(TO(pr)T(ov. Quoti'd also by the anonymous osophcr." Pascal, Pensces. part i. art. xi. § commentator in Cramers Anecdota, iv. p. 391. 36. Compare Jlontaigne, Essais, lib. ii. c. xiL — Ed. — tom. ii. p. 216, ed. 1725.] Lect. IV. METAPHYSICS. 47 their result ; for, as I have previously explained to you, in ascend- ing from cause to cause, we necessarily, (coukl we carry our analysis to its issue,) arrive at absolute unity. Indeed, were it not a discus- sion for which you are not as yet prepared, it might be shown, that both principles originate in the same condition; — that both ema- nate, not from any original power, but from the same original power- lessness of mind. ^ Of the former, — namely, the ,. '^ ii'"^'^''\° ^ tendency, or rather the necessity, which we feel to Cause and Effect. •' ' . . connect the objects of our experience with others which afford the reasons of their existence, — it is needful to say but little. The nature of this tendency is not a matter on which we can at present enter ; and the fact of its existence is too notorious to require either proof or illustration. It is sufficient to say, or rather to repeat what we have already stated, that the inind is una- ble to realize in thought the possibility of any absolute commence- ment: it cannot conceive that anythinsc which be2;ins to be is anv- thing more than a new modification of preexistent elements ; it is unable to vieAV any individual thing as other than a link in the mighty chain of being; and every isolated object is viewed by it only as a fragment which, to be known, must be known in con- nection Avith the whole of which it constitutes a part. It is thus that we are unable to rest satisfied Avith a mere historical knowl- edge of existence ; and that even our happiness is interested in dis- coA'ering causes, hypothetical at least, if not real, for the various phenomena of the existence of Avhich our experience informs us. "Felix qui potiiit irniiii cognoscere causas." 2 The second tendency of our nature, of Avhich j)hilosophy is the result, is the desire of Unitv. On this, Avhich 2. The love of Unity. • i 1 • , ^i ^t -^ • * i nideed involves. the other, it is necessary to be somcAvhat more explicit. This tendency is one of the most prom- inent characteristics of the human iiiiiid. It, in p.irt, originates in the imbecility of our faculties. We are lost in the multitude of the objects presented to our observation, and it is only by assorting them in da.sses that Ave can reduce the infinity t)f nature to the fini- tude of miml. The conscious Ego, the conscious Self, by its nature one, seems also constrained to reciuire that unity by Avhich it is dis- tinguished, in everything which it receives, and in everyth'ing which it produces. I regret that I can illii.-^trate this only by examples Avhich cannot, I am aware, as yet be fully intelligible 1 This is partially argued in tlic Discussionf, p. 609. — ED. 2 Virgil, Gangicf, ii. 490 48 M E T A P H V S I C S . L i:CT. IV ^ to all. We are conscious of a scene presented to our senses onlj by uniting its parts into a perceived whole. Perception is thus a unifying act. The Imagination cannot repi*esent an object with- out uniting, in a single combination, the various elements of which it is composed. Generalization is only the apprehension of the one in tlie many, and language little else than a registry of the factitious unities of thought. The Judgment cannot affirm or deny one notion of another, except by uniting the two in one indivisible act of comparison. Syllogism is simply the union of two judgments in a third. Reason, Intellect, voGs, in fine, con- catenating thoughts and objects into system, and tending always upwards from particular facts to general laws, from general laws to imiversal principles, is never satisfied in its ascent till it compre- hend, (what, however, it can never do), all laws in a single formula, and consummate all conditional knowledge in the unity of uncon ditional existence. Xor is it only in science that the mind desider- ates the one. "We seek it equally in Avorks of art. A work of art is only deserving of the name, inasmuch as an idea of the work has preceded its execution, and inasmuch as it is itself a realization of the ideal model in sensible forms. All languages express the mental operations by words Avhich denote a reduction of the many to the one. 2vve(ns, ■n-epLXrjij/L's, crvi/ato-^i^o-ts, o-weTrtyvwo-t?, etc. in Greek ; — in Latin, cohere, {co-agere)^ cogiUire, {co-a. — E». 4 Kritik der reinen Vemunft, p. 359, ed. 1799. 2 Priscianus Lydus: Kara 'Tr]v fls ff — Ed. • •<.<<. xviii.) 'E7re«5)) TO ndin-a eh ei^ iiyfi, 5TiiJ.ioui>yov(Ta — Orul Inter/). Kol irXaTTovaa koI nop. Saturn. The eceenfiieity diniiiii>h -x ^ >. i i • ^ i imiiormity oi natural pnajnomena, is not only source of error. . _ ^ ^ _ •' an effective mean of discovery, but likeM'ise an abundant source of error. Hardly is there a similarity de- tected between two or three flxcts, than men hasten to extend it to all others ; and if, ])erchance, the similarity has been detected by ourselves, self-loxe closes our eyes to the contradictions which our theory may encounter from exjjerience." ^ " I have heard," says Condillac, " of a philoso])her who had the happiness of think- ing that he had (.liscovered a principle which was to explain all the wonderful i)h{Bnomena of chemistry, and who, in the ardor t)f his self-gratulation, hastened to communicate his discovery to a skilful chemist. The chemist nad the kindness to Hsten to him, and then calmly told him that there Avas but one unfortunate cir- (;umstance for his discovery, — that the chemical facts were precisely the converse of what he had suj)posed them to be. ' Well, then, said the philoso])her, ' have the goodness to tell me Avhat they^ arc, that I may explain them on my system.' " - We are naturally dis- posed to refer everything we do not know to principles with Avhich Ave are familiar. As Aristotle observes,'' the early Pythagoreans, Avho first studied arithmetic, Avere induced, by their scientific ])redi- lections, to explain the ])roblem of the miiverse by the properties ol 1 Gamier, Cours de Psychologie, p. 192-94. '- Troitc tUs Si/.'Hc/ne.^, cliap. xii. CEuvrei tUf. Ancillon, Nouv. Melanges, i. p. 1, et seq.] P/iilus. torn. iv. p. 146 (ifl. 1795). 3 Mttapk. I. t>. — Ed. Lect, IV. METAPHYSICS. 51 niiinber ; and he notices also that a certain musical philosopher was, in like manner, led to suppose that the soul was but a kind of har- mony.' The musician sii<;s;t'sts to my recollection a passage of Dr. Keid. " 3Ir. Locke," says he, " mentions an eminent musician Avho believed that God created the world in six days, and reste. mislead. It was foinn'rly ai)i)lied to the {lay) 4 Rliet. ii. 1. To) /xeu iTri^vfj.ov"Ti Kcd (veK- people in contradistinction from the clergy. iriSi 6uTt, ihu ^ rh icrSfj.ei'OV riSv, Koi i(Tf(T- See Richardson, Eng. Diet., v. Lewd. — Ed. ^ai Ka\ h.ya^bv ffficrSiat (palffrat, riS 5' aira- 2 On the Imtnortaliiy of the fioid, 8tiuiza9, ^e?, koJ 5v(7X^P<^^'OPrt, TOvvayrLov. — Ed. «( leq. Lect. IV. METAPHYSICS 63 intellectual system of their hoUlers. If oj)posed to prevalent doc- trines, self-love defends them as a point of honor, exaggerates what- ever may confirm, overlooks or extenuates whatever may contradict. Again, if accepted as a general doctrine, they are too often recog nized, in consequence of their })revalence, as ini, 10; Harmonif- Mundl^ lib. iv. c. 7 — Ki>. 64 METAPHYSICS. Lhct. IV. of that science is, in trutli, little else than an incredible narrative of the substitution of fitttions for facts ; the converts to an hy])Othesis, (and every, the most contradictory, doctrine has had its day), regu- larly seeing and reporting oidy in conformity with its dictates.^ The same is also true of the philosophy of mind ; and the variations and alternations in this science, which are ])erhai)S only surpassed by those in medicine, are to be traced to a refusal of the real phsDnom- enon revealed in consciousness, and to the substitution of another, more in unison Avith preconceived opinions of what it ought to be. Nor, in this commutation of tact with fiction, should we sus2)ect that there is any mala fides. Prejudice, imagination, and passion, sufficiently explain the illusion. " Fingunt simul cre- duntque." - "When," says Kant, " we have once heard a l)ad report of this or that individual, we incontinently think that we read the rogue in his countenance ; fancy here mingles with observation, whifh is still farther vitiated when affection or passion interferes." " The passions," says Helvetius,^ " not only concentrate our attention on certain exchisive aspects of the objects wliich they pre- sent, but thev likewise often deceive us in showing these same objects where they do not exist. The story is well known of a par- son and a gay lady. They had both heai-d that the moon was peopled, — believed it, — and, telescope in hand, Avere attempting to discover the inhabitants. If I am not mistaken, says the lady, who looked first, I perceive two shadows ; they bend toward each other, and, I have no doubt, are two happy lovers. Lovers, madam, says the divine, who looked second ; oh fie ! the two shadows you saw are the two steeples of a cathedral. This story is the liistory of man. In general, we perceive only in things what we are de- sirous of finding : on the earth as in the moon, various preposses- sions make us always recognize either lovers or cathedrals." \y Such are the two intellectu.11 necessities which afford the two I,' principal sources of philosophy : — the intellec- UM lary tau.e o ^^^^j jj^^^^ggj^^^y ^j' refunding effects into their philosophy — Wonder. . causes ;•* — and the intellectual necessity of car- rying uj) our knowledge into unity or system. But, besides these intellectual necessities, which are involved in the very existence of our faculties of knowledge, there is another j)owei-ful subsidiary to the same effect, — in a certain affection of our capacities of feeling. This feeling, accoiding to circumstances, is denominated surprise, astonishment., admiration, wonder, and, when blended with the 1 See the Author's Article " On the Revolu- •" D« V Krprii, Discours i. chap. if. tions of Medicine," Disnisstima^ p. 242. — Ed. 4 [This expre.s.sion is employed by Sergeant, a Tacitu.', Hnt lib. ii. c. 8. — Ed. See Method to Science, p. 222. Cf. pp. 144, 145./ Lkct. IV. METAPHYSICS. 55 intellectual tendencies we have considered, it obtains the name ot curioniti/. Tliis feeling-, though it cannot, as some have held, be allowed to be the ])nncii)al, far less the only, cause of philosophy, is, however, a 2)owerful auxiliary to speculation; and, though iiiailc- quate to account for the existence of philosoj)liy absolutely, it adequately explains the j)reference with Avhich certain parts of philosophy, have been cultivated, and the order in which ])hilosophy in general has been developed. We may err botli in exaggerating, and in extenuating, its influence. Wonder has been contemptuously called the daughter of ignorance ; true, but wonder, we should add, is the mother of knowledge. Among others, Plato, Aristotle, Plu- tarch, and r)a(<)n, have all concurred in testifying to the influence of this priutipie. "Admiration," says the Platonic Socrates in the Th<(jet((n.<\' — "admiration is a highly philosophical affection; in- - H, (Montagu's ed.) s riutarcli, Tlepl rov E» tov iv ix(K(poh, 56 METAPHYSICS. Lect. IV est semen sapientiue," and copious illustrations of its trutli, — illus- trations which I shall not quote, but they deserve your private study. Xo one, however, has so fully illustrated the ])lay and effect of thLs motive as a distinguished philosopher of this country, Adam Smith ; although he has attributed too little to the principal, too much to the subsidiary, momenta. He seems not to have been aware of what had been, previously to him, observed in regard to this pi'inciple by others. You will find the discussion among his. posthumous essays, in that entitled Tlie Principles ichich lead and direct Philosop/iiral Iitquiries, illustrated by the History of As- tronomy ; — to this I must simply refer you. We have already remarked, that the principle of wonder affords an explanation of the order in which the differ- Affords an expiation ^^^ obiccts of philosophv engaged the attention of the Older in which ,-1 rni ■ r> T^ ^ ^^ objects studied. ^^ mankind. Ihe aim of all philosophy is the discovery of i^rineiples, that is, of higher causes ;. but, in the procedure to this end, men first endeavored to explain those phaenomena which attracted their attention by arousing their wonder. The child is wholly absorbed in the observation of the world without ; the world within first engages the contemplation of the man. As it is with the individual, so was it with the species. Philosophy, before attempting the problem of intelligence, endeav- ored to resolve the problem of nature. The spectacle of the exter- nal universe was too imposing not first to solicit curiosity, and to direct upon itself the prelusive efforts of philosophy. Thalos and Pythagoras, in whom philosophy finds its earliest representatives^ endeavored to explain the organization of the universe, and to sub- stitute a scientific for a religious cosmogony. For a season their successors toiled in the same course ; and it was only after philoso- phy had tried, and tired, its forces on external nature, that the human mind recoiled upon itself, and sought in the study of its own nature tlie object and end of philoso])hy. The mind now became to itself its })oint of departure, and its principal object ; and its progress, if less ambitious, was more secure. Socrates was he who first decided this new destination of philosophy. From his epoch man sought in himself the solution of the great problem of exist- ence, and the history of })hilosophy was henceforAvard only a deveU opment, more or less successful, more or less complete, of the inscription on the Delphic temple — Tvd^i o-ctturdv — Know thyself ' 1 Plato, Protagoras, p. 343. — Ed. ISee Geruzez, Nouvfau Cours de Philosophie, p. 1 1 LECTURE V. THE DISPOSITIONS WITH WHICH PHILOSOPHY OUGHT TO BE STUDIED. Having, in the previous Lectures, informed you, — 1°, What Philosophy is, and 2°, Wliat are its Causes, I avouM now, in tlie third place, say a few Avords to you on the T)is])ositions with which Philosophy ought to be studied, for, without certain practical con- ditions a speculative knowledge of the most perfect Method of procedure, (our next following question,) remains barren and unap- plied. "To attain to a knoAvledge of ourselves,". says Socrates, "we must banish prejudice, passion, and sloth;"' and no one who neg- lects this prece])t can hope to make any jtrogress in the ])hil()SO])hy of the human mind, which is onlv another term for the knuwledire of ourselves. In the first place, tlicn, all prejudices, — that is, all opinions formed on irrational grounds. — ought to be First condition oi' removed. A preliminary doubt is thus the fun- tlie study of IMiiloso- , ^, ^.. n ■< •^ i -1,1 , • .■ ,. damental conditu)n ot i)iulos()i)hv ; and the ne- phy, — renunciution ol 11.' prejudice. ccssity of sucli a doubt is no less apparent th:in is its difficulty. Wc do not approach the study of philosoj)hy ignorant, but j)ervertcd. "There is no one who has not grown up under a load of beliefs — beliefs which he owes to tlie accidents of country and family, to the books he has read, to the society he has frequented, to the education lie lias received, and, in general, to the circumstances which have concurred in the formation of his intellectual an. These bflicts may be true, or they may be false, or, what is nu)re probabU', they may be a medley of truths and ei-i-ors. It is, however, under llieir intluence that he studies, and through them, as through a prism, tli.-it he views :nnl judges the objects of kiK)wledge. Everytliing i> tlierefore seen by him in false colors, and in distorted relations. .Vnd tliis is the rea fSeo (ijiticii-Arnnii't. Dr"-'-'>i<- Vifof/tliit/ur. p. 39.1 8 58 METAPHYSICS. Lect. V. son why philosophy, as the science of truth, requires a renunciation of prejudices, (prse-judicia, opiniones prae-judicatae), -^that is, con- clusions formed without a previous examination of their grounds."^ In this, if I may without irreverence compare things human with things divine, Christianity and Philosophy coin- in this Christianity eide^— for truth is equallv the end of both. andriiiloscphyatone. . . *; . ... ^ What IS tlie primary condition which our ba- viour requires of his disciples '? That they throw off their old pre- judices, and come with hearts willing to receive knowledge and un- derstandings open to conviction, "Unless," He says, " ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." Such is true religion ; such also is true philosophy. Philosophy requires an emancipation from the yoke of foreign authority, a renunciation of all blind adhesion to the opinions of our age and country, and a purification of the intellect from all assumptive beliefs. Unless we can cast off the prejudices of the man, and become as cbildren, do- cile and unjDerverted, we need never hope to enter the temjole of philosophy. It is the neglect of this primary condition which has mainly occasioned men to wander from the unity of truth, and caused the endless A^ariety of religious and j^hilosophical sects. Men would not submit to approach the word of God in order to receive from that alone their doctrine and their faith ; but they came in general with jireconceived opinions, and, according]}', each found in revelation only Avhat he Avas predetermined to find. So, in like manner, is it in philosophy. Consciousness is to ., ^"^^'°"^"®^^ ^" the philosopher what the Bible is to the theo- tlie Bible. -^ "^ logian. Both are revelations of the truth, — and both afford the truth to those who are content to receive it, as it ought to be received, Avith reverence and submission. But as it has, too frequently, fiired i^'ith the one revelation, so has it Avith the other. Men turned, indeed, to consciousness, and professed to re- gard its authority as paramount, but they Avere not content humbly to accej^t the facts Avhicli consciousness revealed, and to establish these Avithout retrenchment or distortion, as the only principles of their ])hilosophy ; on the i-ontrary, they came Avith opinions already formed, Avith systems already constructed, and Avhile they eagerly appealed to consciousness Avhen its data supported their conclusions, they ma'"c<^ of ancient habits and the contagious symi)athy of new modes of feeling and thought. In one portion of society, the inveterate influence of custom i)revails over the contagion of example ; in otliers, the contagion of example prevails over the conservative force of antiquity and habit. In either case, however, we think and act always in sympathy with others. " AVe remain," says an illustrious philosopher, " submissive so long as the world continues to set the example. As we follow the hei-d in forming our conceptions of what is respectable, so we are ready to follow the multitude also, when such conceptions come to be questioned or rejected ; and are no less vehement reformers, Avhen the current of opinion has tunuMl against former establish- ments, than we were zealous abettors while that current continued to set ill a diflereut direction."^ Thus it is that no revolution in jmblic opinion is the work of an individual, of a single cause, or of a day. "When Relation of the indi- , ... • i i i ' ., ,. • 1 • the crisis has arrived, the catastroiilie must eu- YKlii.al to socuil crises. ' ' sue ; but the agents through whom it is appar- ently accomplished, though they may accelerate, cannot originate its occurrence. Who believes that but for L.ither or Zwingli the Reformation \\()uld not have been? Their individual, their per- sonal energy and zeal, perhajis, hastened by a year or two the event ; but had the public mind not been already rij)e for their revolt, the fate of Luther and Zwingli, in the sixteenth century, would have been that of IIuss and Jerome of l*rague in the fifteenth. Woe to the revolutionist who is not himself a creature of the revolution I If he anticipate, lie is lost; for it requires, what no individual can sujijily, a long and jtoweri'ul counter-sympathy in a nation to un- twine the ties of custom which l)iiid a i)eople to the established aud 1 Pensces, partie i. art. vi. § 8, (vol. ii. p. 126, krd/ln und WilUnslcrd/u ilfs Mrnschcn, ii. 32a «d. Faugirc.) (ed. IHOC.) 2 See Meiners, Untemuchungen ilberdie Denk- :! Fcrfrusoii's Mnml ami Pnliliral Srirnrr, vol i. part. i. cluip. ii. 5 H, p. 135. 62 METAPHYSICS. LfcCT. Y the old. This is finely expressed by Schiller, in a soliloquy from the mouth of the revolutionary Wallenstein : — Schiller. " What is thy purpose ? Hast thou fairlj' weighed it? Thou scekest ev'n from its broad base to shalte The cahn enthroned majesty of power, By ages of possession consecrate — Firm rooted in tlic rugged soil of custom — And witli the people's first and fondest faith. As with a thousand stubborn tendrils twined. That were no strife where strength contends with strength. It is not strength I fear — I fear no foe Whom with my bodily eye I see and scan; Who, brave himself, inflames my courage too. It is an unseen enemy I dread, Who, in the hearts of mankind, fights against me — Fearful to me but from his own weak fear. Not that which proudly towers in life and strength Is truly dreadful ; but the mean and common. The memory of the eternal yesterday, Which, ever-warning, ever still returns. And weighs to morrow, for it weighed to-day; Out of the common is man's nature framed, And custom is the nurse to whom he cleaves. Woe then to him whose daring hand profanes The honored heir-looms of his ancestors! There is a consecrating power in time; And what is gray Avith j^ears to man is godlike. Be in possession, and thou art in right; The crowd M^jll lend tlicc nid to keep It sacred." i This may enable you to understand how seductive is the influence of example ; and I .should have no end were I to quote to you all that philosophers have said of the prevalence and evil influence of prejudice and o])inion. We have seen that custom is called, by Pindar and Herodotus, the Queen of the World — and the same thing Testimonies of phii- -^^ exin'osscd bv the adatie — "Mundus regitur oeophers to the power . . . ii \l r\ • ■ Vi ^i ,. -d " i of .^ceived opinion. opimonibus. "Opinion, says the great Pascal, "dis)>oses of all things. It constitutes beauty, justice, haj)piness ; and these are the all in%ll of the Avorld. I would with all my heart see the Italian book of which I know only the 1 Wallemttein. (Translated by Mr. George Moir.) Act. i. scene 4, p. 15. Lect. V. METAPHYSICS. 63 title, — a title, however, which is itself worth many books — Delia opinione regina del niondo. I subscribe to it implicitly." ^ " Cou- tume," says Regnier, " C!outuine, opinion, rcines dc notre sort, Vous reglcz des mortels, et la vie, et la mort! " " Almost every o]nnion we have," says the pious Charon, " we have but by authority; we believe, judge, act, live and die on trust, as common custom teaches us; and rightly, for we are too weak to decide and choose of ourselves. But the wise do not act thus." - " Every opinion," says Montaigne, " is strong enough to have had its martyrs;"^ and Sir W. Raleigh — "It is oj)inion, not truth, that travelleth the world without pass})ort."^ "Opinion," says Heraeii- tus, "is a falling sickness;"' "and Luther — "O doxa! doxa! quam es communis noxa." In a word, as Honimel has it, " An ounce of custom outweighs a ton of reason."" Such being the recognized universality and evil effect of preju- dice, philosophers have, consequently, been unaii- Phiiosopheis unani- imous in making doubt the first step towards mous in makii)'; doubt , -i ■, a • . .1 i c i ^ • 1 • ,, ^ , r . •, iJhilosoiihy. Aristotle has a fine chai)ter in his the hrst step to pliil- . osphy. Metaphysics' on the utility of doubt, and on the things which we ought first to doubt of; and he concludes by establishing that the success of i)hilosophy dei>ends on the art of doubting well. This is even enjoined on us by the Apostle. For in saying "Prove" (which maybe more correctly translated tes() — "Test all things," he implicitly commands us to doubt all things. " He," says Bacon, " who would become philosopher, must t-oni- mence by repudiating: belief;" and he concludes Uacon. c i /•! • • one of the most remarkable jjassages of his writ- ings with the observation, that " were there a single man to be found with a firmuoss sullicient to eftiice from his mind the theories and notions vulgarly received, and to a))]tly his intellect free and without prevention, the best hopes might be entertained of his success."^ "To philosoi)hize," savs Descartes, Descartes. . i i ■ "senouslv, and to cfood effect, il is necessarv tor a man to renounce all prejudices ; in other words, to api)Iy the great- 1 Penscfs, i)artie i. art. S vi. 3. [Vol. ii. p. 4 Preface to liis History o/ihf IIVW. .52, cd. Fuiipere. M. Fimpere ha.s restored •■; Piofj. Laert. lib. ix. 5 7. tlie orijiiiial text of Tascal — "■• Im' imagination <". [Alex. v. .locli (llommel), fVr Belnhnung dispose de tout.'" Tlie ordinary reading is unit i'fra/>, p. 111. See Krnj;. Philosopliisrhts L'opinion. — En.] Lrxi'A-on, vol. v. j). 467. art. Grtcohn/ieit .] - Df la Sa^fSff, liv. i. cliap. xvi. * Lib. ii. c. 1. — Kn. S Essais, liv. i. clinp. xl. 8 " Xenio adliuc tauta mentis coustautia inr 64 METAPHYSICS. Lect. V. est care to doubt of all his previous oj^inions, so long as these have not been subjected to a new examination, and been recognized as true."' But it is needless to multiply authorities in support of so obvious a truth. The ancient philosophers refused to admit slaves to their instruction. Prejudice makes men slaves; it disqualifies them for the pursuit of truth ; and their emancipation from preju- dice is what philosoi)hy first inculcates on, what it first requires of, its disciples. ^ Let us, however, beware that we act not the part of revolted slaves; that in asserting our liberty we do not run into license. Philosophical doubt is not an end but Pliilosopliical doubt. ti.ii a mean. We doubt ni order that we may be- lieve ; we begin that we may not end with doubt. We doubt once that we may believe always ; we renounce authority that Ave may follow reason ; we surrender opinion that we may obtain knowledge. We must be protestants, not infidels, in philosophy. " There is a great difference," says Malebranche, " between Malebnuiche. -, , ■ i i i . -rrr t i i i doubting and doubtmg. — VV e doubt through passion and brutality ; through blindness and malice, and finally through fancy and from the A^ery Avish to doubt ; but Ave doubt also from prudence and through distrust, from Avisdom and through penetration of mind. The former doubt is a doubt of darkness, which never issues to the light, but leads us always further from it; the latter is a doubt which is born of the light, and AAdiich aids in a certain sort to produce light in its turn." Indeed, were the effect of philoso])hy the establishment of doubt, the remedy would be Avorse than the dissase. Doubt, as a permanent state of mind, Avould be, in flict, little better than an intellectual death. The mind lives as it believes, — it lives in the affirmation of itself, of nature, and of God ; a doubt i\pon any one of these Avould be a diminution of its life, — a doubt upon the three, were it possible, Avould be tan- tamount to a mental annihilation. It is Avell observed, by Mr. SteAvart, " that it is not merely in order to free Stewart. • i /» i • » the mmd from the influence of error, that it is useful to examine the fouu lation of established opinions. It is such ventus est, ut decreverit, et sibi inii)osuerit, iilaria de integro applicet, de eo melius pper- theorias et iiotiones communes peintiis abo- andum est " — Xat. Or;?-, i. aph. xcvii. ; tt'orks, lere, et intellectum abrasum et a-<|uiim ad vol. ix. p 252, (Montagu's ed.) See also om- particularia, de integro, applicare. Itarobal)ly liave been a liigut in the days of the Leacrue.'' In tiic midst of these contrarv imiudses of fashionable and vulgar ]ii-c)UiruH's, lie alone evinces the suju'riority and tlie strength of his mind, who is able to disentangle trutli from error; and to op]>ose the clear conclusions of liis own unbiassed faculties to the united clamors of superstition and of false ])]iilosoj>hy. Such are the men whom nature marks out to be the lights of the 9 66 METAPHYSICS. , Lect. V. world ; to fix the wavering opinions of the multitude, and to im- press their own characters on that of their age. "^ In a word, philosophy is, as Aristotle has justly expressed it, not the art of doubting, but the art of doubting: Aristotle. „ „ ° =>■ well.- In the second place, in obedience to the precept of Socrates, the passions, under which we shall include sloth.. Second practical ^ .^^ ^^^ ^^ Subjugated, condition,— subjuga- . tion of the passions. ^hesc ruffle the tranquillity of the mmd, and consequently deprive it of the jiower of carefully considering all that the solution of a question requires should be examined. A man under the agitation of any lively emotion, is hardly aware of aught but Avhat has immediate relation to the pas- sion which agitates and engrosses him. Among the aftections which influence the will, and induce it to adhere to skepticism or error, there is none more dangerous than sloth. The Sloth. . n ^ • 1 . ,. -, greater proportion ot mankind are inclined to spare themselves the trouble of a long and laborious inquiry ; or they fancy that a superficial examination is enough ; and the slight- est agreement between a few objects, in a few petty points, they at once assume as evincing the correspondence of the whole throughout Others apply themselves exclusively to the matters which it is ab- solutely necessary for them to know, and take no account of any oj^inion but that which they have stumbled on, — for no other rea- son than that they have embraced it, and are unwilling to recom- mence the labor of learning. They receive their opinion on the authority of tliose who have had suggested to them their own ; and they are always facile scholars, for the slightest probability is, foi- them, all the evidence J,hat they require. Pride is a powerful impediment to a progress- in knowledge. Under the influence of this pas- sion, men seek honor, but not truth. They do not cultivate what is most valuable in reality, but what is most valuable in opinion^ They disdain, perhaps, what can be easily accomplished, and apply themselves to the obscure and recondite ; but as the vulgar and easy is the foundation on which the rare and ai'duous is built, they fail even in attaining the object of their ambition, and remain with only a farrago of confused and ill-assorted notions. In all its 1 Coll. Works, vol. ii.; Elements, vol. i. book ^ y^p {ia-rtpov eviropia \v(tls twv nrpSrepot ii. } 1, p. 68, et seq. aTropovfjLfvwv ftTTi, \vfii/ 5' oitK fCTTiv ayvo~ 2 Metaph. ii. 1. "Eo-tj 5e rois (inropriaai ovvras rbf Stafj.ov. — KD. PovKofxtyoiS irpotipyov rh Siatropriaai Ka\ws' Lect. V. METAPHYSICS. 67 phases, self-love is an enemy to philosophical progress ; and the his- tory of ])hilosophy is filled with the illusions of which it has been the source. On the one side, it lias led men to close their eyes against the most evident truths which were not in harmony with their adopted opinions. It is said that there was not a j^hysician in Europe, above the age of forty, who would admit Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood. On the other hand, it is finely ob- served by Bacon, that " the eye of human intellect is not dry, but receives a suffusion from the will and from the affections, so that it may almost be said to engender any sciences it pleases. For what a man wishes to be true, that he prefers believing." ' And, in another place, "if the hum'an intellect hath once taken a liking to any doctrine, either because received and credited, or because other- wise pleasing, — it draws everything else into harmony with that doctrine, and to its support ; and albeit there may be found a more powerful array of contradictory instances, these, however, it eitner does not observe, or it contemns, or by distinction exte^tuates and rejects."^ 1 Vov. Org.Ub i. aph.zlix * ^^ xlvi LECTURE YI. THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. The next question we proceed to consider is, — What is the true Method or Methods of Pliilosopli^'? There is only one possible method in ])hilosophy; and what have been called the different methods of different philosophers, vary from each other only as more or less perfect applications of this one Method to the objects of knowledge. All method 1 is a rational progress, — a progress towards an end; and the method of philosophy is tlie procedure et o a progress conducive to the end which i)hilosoi)hv pi'o- towards an end. '■ i j i poses. The ends, — the final causes of i>hiloso- phy, — as we have seen, — are two; — first, the discovery of efti- cient causes; secondly, the generalization of our knowledge into unity; — two ends, however, which foil together into one, inas- mucli as the higher we isroceed in the discovery of causes, we necessarily approximate more and more to unity. The detection of the one in the many might, therefore, be laid down as the end to which philosoj)hy, though it can never reach '***"r, ^ ^ .** it, tends continually to approximate. But, con- one possible method. _ _ ^ i i > sidjering philosophy in relation to both these ends, I shall endeavor to show you that it has only one j^ossible method. Considering philosophy, in the first place, in relation to its first end, — the discovery of causes, — we hav6 seen •rins shown in reia- ^^^^^ ^.^ (taking that term as svnonymous tion to the first end of i, • , , • , , ^ Philosophy. ^^^' '^'^ Without winch the effect would not be,) are only the coefficients of the effect ; an effect being nothing more than the sum or complement of all the partial causes, the concurrence of which constitute its existence. This being the case, — and as it is only by experience that we discover 1 [On the difference between Order and post aliam; Methodus ut unam per aliam." Method, see J'acciolati, Rudimenta Lo^icer., Cf. Zabarella, O/). Log., pp. 139, 149, 223, 225; parsiv. c. i. note: " Methodus differt ab Or- Molinseus, Log., p. 234 et seq. p. 244 et seq., ed. dine; quia ordo facit ut rem unam discamus 1613.] Lect. VI. METAPHYSICS. 69 what particular causes must conspire to produce siich or such an effect, — it follows, that nothing can become known to us as a cause except in and through its effect; in other words, that we can only attain to the knowledge of a cause by extracting it out of its effect. To take the example, we formerly employed, of a neutral salt. This, as I observed, was made up by the conjunction of three proximate causes, — viz. an acid, — an alkali, — and the force which brought the alkali and the acid into the recpxisite aj^proximation. This last, as a transitory condition, and not always the same, we shall throw out of account. Xow, though we might know the acid and the alkali in themselves as distinct pha?nomena, we could never know them as the concurrent causes of the salt, unless m'o had known the salt as their effect. And though, in this example, it hapj)ens that we are able to compose the effect by the union of its causes, and to decompose it by their separation, — this is only an accidental circumstance ; for the far greater numbei- of the objects presented to our observation, can only be decompose • i. '• decomposition or effects into their constituted causes. This is the fundamental procedure of philosophy, and ig called by a Greek term Analysis. But though analysis be the fundamental ])rocedure, it is still only a mean towards an eii<^ We analyze only that we may comprehend ; and we comju-eheii only inasmuch as we are able to reconstruct in thought the com- plex effects Avhich we have analyzed into their elements. This mental reconstruction is, therefore, the final, the c«»iisuminative procedure of philosophy, and it is familiarly known by the (Tieek term Sunthesls. Analysis and svnthesis, thouiih Synthesis. ' • commonly treated as two different methods, arc, if properly understood, only the two necessary parts of the same method. Each is the relative and the correlative of the other. Analysis, without a subselurality of objects agree, — or that in which they may be considered as the sume; and the agreement of objects in any common (|UMlity being discoverable only by :ni (»bs»>rvati(>n and CDniparison of tlic ol)jccts themselves, it follows tliat a knowledge of the one can only be evolved out of a foregoing knowled<;e of tlie man v. But this evolution can onlv be accomplished by an analysis and a synthesis. I5y .inalysis, from the infinity of objects presente(\.sci(Siio«5, p. 173. or of extension. The latter, however, is the — Ed. Lkct; YI. METAl'IIYSICS. 7S But, (as nature is uniform in lier operations,) this, that, and the other body-, (some bodies,) represent all bodies, — Therefore all bodies gravitate. Now, in this and other exanijdes of induction, it is the mind .Avhich binds up the separate substances observed and collected into a whole, and converts what is only the observation of many particulars into a universal law. This i)rocedure is manifestly syn- thetic. Now, you will remark that analysis and synthesis are here abso- lutely dependent on each other. The previous observation and comparison, — the analytic foundation, — are only instituted for the sake of the subsequent induction, — the synthetic consumma- tion. What boots it to observe and to compare, if the uniformities we discover among objects are never generalized into laws ? We have obtained an historical, but not a philosophical knowledge. Here, therefore, analysis without synthesis is incomi>lete. On the other hand, an induction which does not proceed upon a compe- tent enumeration of particulars, is either doubtful, improbable, or null; for all synthesis is dependent on a foi*egone analysis for whatever degree of certainty it may pretend to. Thus, considering philosophy in relation to its second end, unity or system, it is mani- fest that the method by which it accomplishes that end, is a method involvimr both an analvtic and a svnthetic process. Now, as philosophy has only one possible method, so the His- tory of philosophy only manifests the conditions The history of phi- ^f ^]^jg q,-,^ method, more or less accurately ful- losonliv manifests the „,, , r^n i_ i- • ^i il 1 ' • , filled. There arc aberrations in tlie method, — tiiore or less accurate fuiHiment of thecon- no aberrations from it. i • • t i.hiiosophy sciousness, for the ])urpose of explauung them. And with that first act of reflection, the method of philosophy began, in its ap]>lication of an analysis, and in i».v application of a synthesis, to its object. The first pliilosophers naturally endeavored to explain the enigma <>f external nature. The magnificent spectacle of the material universe, and the mar- vellous demonstrations of j>ower and Misdom which it c/erywhere exhibited, were the objects whicli cMlIi-d forth the earliest efforts of speculation. Philosoj)hy was thus, at its (•(.iiimenc(Mneii., phys- ical, not ])sycholouic:il ; it was imt the prulih'iii dftli.' roul, but the ])rol)lem of the world, which it first atti-mpfed to 80)\e. '•Atid what was tlie procedure of ])liili>sophy in its tjolution of this j)r<)bh"nr:' Diil it first decompose t!ie whok- into its parts, in ](> 74 METAPHYSICS. LecT. VL order again to reconstruct tliem into a system V This it could not accomplish ; but still it attempted this, and nothing else. A com- plete analysis was not to be expected from the first efforts of intel- ligence; its decompositions were necessarily partial and imperfect; a ]>artial and imperfect analysis afforded only hypothetical ele- ments; and the synthesis of these elements issued, consequently, only in a one-sided or ei'roneous theory. " Thales, the founder of the Ionian j)hilosoi)hy, devoted an especial study to the phenomena of the mate- Thales and the Ionic • i • j ^ i '^1 ^i „ rial universe ; and, struck with the appearances of power which water manifested in the forma- tion of bodies, he analyzed all existences into this element, which he viewed as the universal principle, — the universal agent of cre- ation. He proceeded by an incomplete analysis, and generalized by hypothesis the law which he drew by induction from the obser- vation of a small series of phaenomena. "The Ionic school continued in the same jiatli. They limited themselves to the study of external nature, and sought in matter the ]>rinciple of existence. Anaximander of Miletus, the country- man and disciple of Thales, deemed that he had traced the primary cause of creation to an ethereal principle, which occupied space, and whose different combinations constituted the universe of mat- ter. Anaximenes found the original element in air, from which, by rarefaction and condensation, he educed existences. Anaxa- goras carried his analysis farther, and made a more discreet use of hypothesis; he rose to the conception of an intelligent first cause, distinct from the phaenomena of nature ; and his notion of the Deity was so far above the gross conceptions of his contempo- raries, that he was accused of atheism. "Pythagoras, the founder of the Italic school, analyzed the jiroper- ties of number; and the relations which this \t iagora.s an. t ic aualvsis revealed, he elevated into principles of Italic Scliool. " . . ^ ' . the mental and material universe. Mathematics were his only objects ; his analysis was partial, and his synthesis was consecpiently hypothetical. The Italic school developed the notions of Pythagoras, and, exclusively preoccupied with the rela- tions and harmonies of existence, its disciples did not extend their .sjieeulation to the consideration either of substance or of cause. " Thus, these earlier schools, taking external nature for theit point of departure, proceeded by an imperfect analysis, and a pre- sumptuous synthesis, to the construction of exclusive systems, — in which Idealism, or Materialism, preponderated, according to the kind of data on which thev founded Lect. VI. METAPHYSICS. 75 "The Eleatic school, which is distinguishcrl into two branches, the one of Physical, the other of Metai)hysical, speculation, exhibits the same character, the same point of departure, the same tendency, and the same errors. "These errors led to the skepticism of the Sophists, which was assailed by Socrates, — the sage who determined The Sophiste. Soc- ,. ,., ,, ,. ,. , a new e})och in philosophy by directmg obser- vation on man himself, and henceforward the study of mind becomes the prime and central science of philosoj)hy. " The point of departure was changed, but not the method. The observation or analysis of the human mind, thougli often profound, remained always incomplete. Fortunately, the first disci])k'S of Socrates, imitating the prudence of their master, and warned by the downfldl of the systems of the Ionic, Italic, and Eleatic schools, made a sparing use of synthesis, and hardly a pretension to system. " Plato and Aristotle directed their observation on the pha3- nomena of intelligence, and we caimot too riuto and Aristotle. ,.,, i. i^ n t n ^ • -i • highly admire the proiundity or their analysis, and even the sobriety of their synthesis. Plato devoted himself more [)articularly to the higher faculties of intelligence ; and his disciples were led by the love of generalization, to regard as the intellectual Avhole, those portions of intelligence which their master had analyzed ; and this exclusive spirit gave birth to systems false, not in themselves, but as resting upon a too narrow basis. Aris- totle, on the other hand, whose genius was of a more ])Ositive chai-acter, analyzed with admirable acuteness those operations of mind which stand in more immediate relation to the senses ; and this tendency, which among his followers became often exclusive and exaggerated, naturally engendered systems whicli more or less tended to materialism." ' The school of Alexandria, in which the systems resulting from those opposite tendencies were combined, en- , . deavorcd to reconcile and to luse them into a .ina. still more comprehensive system. Eclecticisnu — conciliation, — union, were, in all things, the grand aim of tlu' Alexandrian school. Geographically situated between Greeci' antl Asia, it e'ndeavored to ally Greek with Asiatic genius, religion with philos(^phy. lli'iicc the Xeoplatonic systt-m. of which the last great it pi cscntativi' is Proclus. This system is the result of the long labor of the Socratic schools. It is an edifice reared by synthesis out of the materialji 1 G6ruzez. rfotivfttu Coinx df P/iilosophie. p. 4-8. Paris, If&i, (2d e«l.| 76 METAPHYSICS. Lect. Vt Avhich analysis had collected, proved, and accumulated, from Soc rates down to Plotinus. But a synthesis is of no greater value than its relative analysis; and as the analysis of the earlier Greek philosophy was not com- ))lete, the synthesis of the Alexandrian school Avas necessarily im- perfect. In the scholastic philosophy, analysis and observation were too often neglected in some departments of phi- The Scholastic Phi- losophv, and too often carried rashly to excess losophy. , in Others. After the revi\ al of letters, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the labors of philosophy were prin- Phiiosophy from ^.j .j^^ occupied in restoring and illustrating the revival of letters. A , i • m , the Greek systems; and it was not until the seventeenth century, that a new epoch was determined by the genius of Bacon and Descartes. In Bacon and Bacon and De.car- j)q^^..^^,^q^ Q^,y luodeni philosophy may be said to originate, inasmuch as they were the first who made the doctrine of method a principal object of considera- tion. They both proclaimed, that, for the attainment of scientific knowledge, it is necessary to observe Avith care, — that is, to an- alyze; to reject every element as hypothetical, which this analysis does not spontaneously afibrd; to call in experiment in aid of observation ; and to attempt no synthesis or generalization, until the relative analysis has been completely accomplished. They showed that previous philosophers had erred, not by rejecting either analysis or synthesis, but by hurrying on to synthetic induc- tion from a limited or specious analytic observation. They pro- ])ounded no new method of philosophy, they only expounded the conditions of the old. They showed that these conditions had rarely been fulfilled by philosophers in time past ; and exhorted them to their fulfilment in time to come. They thus explained the petty progress of the past philosophy; — and justly antici2)ate(7 a gigantic advancement for the future. Such w;is their precept,, but such unfortunately was not their example. There are no phi- losophers who merit so much in the one respect, none, perhaps, who deserve less in the other. Of philoso])hy since Bacon and Descartes, we at present say nothing. Of that we shall hereafter have fre- Resnlt of fliis liis- , .. ^ u j. j. 1,1. lu- ... . . losophy. ^^'^'"^ historical sketch was intended to illustrate. There is but one possible method of philoso- phy, — a combination of analysis and synthesis; and the purity Lect. VI. METAPHYSICS. 7,7 and equilibrium of these two elements constitute its perfection. The aberrations of philosophy have been all so many violations of the laws of this one method. Philosophy has erred, because it built its systems upon incomplete or erroneous analysis, and it can only proceed in safety, if from accurate and unexclusive observa- tion, it rise, by successive generalization, to a comprehensive sys- tem. LECTURE VII, THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. I HAVE already endeavored to afford you a general notion of what Philosophy comprehends: I now proceed to say something in reirard to the Parts into which it has been divided. Here, liowever, I must limit myself to the most famous distributions, and to those which, as founded on fundamental principles, it more immediately concerns you to know. For, were I to attempt an enumeration of the various Divisions of Philosophy wliich have been proposed, I should only confuse you with a multitude of con- tradictory opinions, with the reasons of which you could not, at present, possibly be made acquainted. Seneca, in a letter to his young friend Lucilius, expresses the wish that the whole of philosophy might, like xpe Jencj o a i- ^^^q sijectaclc of the universe, be at once sub- vision of Philosophy. _ ' _ _ ' mitted to our view. " tJtinam quemadmodum universi mundi facies in conspectum venit, ita philosophia tota nobis posset occurrere, simillimum mundo spectaculum."^ But as we cannot survey the universe at a glance, neither can we con- template the whole of philosophy in one act of consciousness. We can only master it gradually and piecemeal ; and this is in fact the reason why philosophers have always distributed their science, (constituting, though it does, one organic whole,) into a plurality of sciences. The expediency, and even necessity, of a division of philosoj)hy, in order that the mind may be enabled to embrace in one general view its various parts, in their relation to each other, and to the whole which they constitute, is admitted by every philosopher. '• Res utilis," continues Seneca, " et ad sapi- entiam properanti utique necessaria, dividi philosophiam, et ingcns corpus ejus in membra disponi. Facilius enim per partes in cog- nitionem totius adducimur."^ But, although philosophers agree in regard to the utility of such a distribution, they are almost as little at ©ne in regard to the parts, as they are in respect to the definition, of their science ; and, indeed, their differences in reference to the former, mainly arise from their 1 Epiat. Ixxxix. 2 Ejiist. Ixxxix. Lect. VII. METAPHYSICS. 7& « discrepancies in reference to the latter. For they who vary in their comprehension of the whole, cannot agree in their division of the parts. The most ancient and universally recognized distinction of philo- sophy, is into Theoretical and Practical. These The most ancient di- .^, ^ discriminated by the different nature of their vision info Theoretical 1,^,1 • i 11 i i-i • 1 • and Practical ends. Theoretical, called likewise speculative, and contem})lative, philosophy, has for its high- est end mere truth or knowledge. Practical ))hilosophy, on the other hand, has truth or knowledge only as its ])roxhnate end, — this end being subordinate to the ulterior end of some practical ac- tion. In theoretical philosophy, avc know for the sake of knowing, scimus ut sciamus : in practical philosophy, we know for the sake of acting, scimus ut operennir} I may here notice the. poverty of the English language, in the want of a word to express that practical activitv Avhich is contradistinguished from mere The term Active. . ,, , , , • ' 1 ^ ^i intellectual or sjieculative energy, — what the Greeks express by Trpdaaeiv, the Germans by han I'lato: Polilinn., p. 2.18: lativnm scimus ul scinmm.pfr pmctiram scimus Tavrrt roivvv, (Tvntrdffa^ iiri(rrTina% 5. yvwcTT iKi)v . — Ed. X Metaph. V. I; T\a.vaLKT^), or in the regulation of human action (rj&tKr]) ;^ for hy nature tliey did not denote the ma- terial universe alone, but their Physics included Metaphysics, and their Ethics embraced Politics and Economics. There was thus only a difference of nomenclature ; for Physical and Theoretical, — ■ Ethical and Practical Philosophy, — were with them terms abso- lutely equivalent. I regard the division of philosophy into Theoretical and Practical as unsound, and this for two reasons. The division of Phi- The first is, that jihilosophy, as philosophy, is losopby into Theoret- ^^. cognitive, — Only theoretical ; whatever lies ical and Practical un- .' o ./ gound. beyond the sphere of speculation or knowledge, transcends the sphere of philosophy ; conse- quently, to divide philosophy by' any quality ulterior tO speculation, is to divide it by a difference which does not belong to it. Now, the distinction of practical philosophy from theoretical, commits this error. For, while it is admitted that all philosophy, as cognitive, is theoretical, some philosophy is again taken out of this category on the ground, that, beyond the mere theory, — the mere cognition, — it has an ulterior end in its application to practice. But, in the second place, this difference, even were it admissible, would not divide j^hHosophy ; for, in point of fact, all pliilosophy must be regarded as practical, inasmuch as mere knowledge, — that is, the mere possession of truth, — is not the highest end of any philosophy, but, on the contrary, all truth or knowledge is valuable only inasmuch as it determines the mind to its contemj^Iation, — that is, to pi-fictical energy. Speculation, therefore, inasmuch as it is not a negation of thought, but, on the contrary, the highest energy of intellect, is, in point of fact, preeminently practical. The practice of one branch of philosophy is, indeed, different from that of another ; but all are still practical ; for in none is mere knowledge the ulti- mate, — the highest end. Among the ancients, the principal difference of opinion regarded the relation of Logic to Philosophy and its branches. But as this controversy is of veiy subordinate importance, and hinges upon distinctions, to explain which would require considerable detail, I 1 Sext. Emp. Artv. Math., vii. 14: Ttif he Tarrovaiv is /col rrjv Kojiktjv beaipiav 4k- difiepTj t})v (piKoTocpiau vnoarriaaixivoiv s.fv- ^aWovra. Seneca, Ep. ixxxix. : " Epicure! o • •! i\ • ^ ^ . (Aristotle hiniseli is silent), as an instrument, relation of Logic to ^ '_ riiii )s(ii.iiy. hut not as a part, of philosophy; — by the Stoics, as forming one of the three parts of philo- sojthy, — Physics, or theoretical, Ethics, or practical ])hilosophy, being the other two. ^ But as Logic, whether considered as a part of j)hilosophy ]»'oper or not, was by all included under the philoso- phical sciences, the division of these sciences which latterly prevailed aintjiig tlie Academic, the Peripatetic, and the Stoical sects, was into Logic as tlie subsidiary or instrumental doctrine, and into the two princii)al branches of Theoretical and Practical Philo- sophy. ^ It is manifest that in our sense of the tenn practical., Logic, as an instrumental science, would be comprehended under the head of practical philosophy. I shall take this oj^j^ortunity of explaining an anomaly which you Avill find explained in no work with which I am pp ica ion o 10 acquainted. Certain branches of philosophical termg Art and Science. ^ '■ '■ knowledge are called Arts, — or Arts and Sciences indifterently ; others are exclusively denominated Sciences. Were this distinction coincident with the distinction of sciences speculative and sciences practical, — taking the term practical in its ordinary acceptation, — there would be no difficulty; for, as every practical science necessarily involves a theory, notliing could be more natural than to call the same branch of knowledge an art, when viewed as relative to its practical application, and a science, when viewed in relation to the theorj which that application sup- poses. But this is not the case. The speculative sciences, indeed, are never deiiominated arts; we may, therefore, throw them aside. The difficulty is exclusively confined to the i)ractical. Of these some never receive the name of arts; others are called arts and sciences indilferently. Thus the sciences of Ethics, Economics, Politics, Tlieology, etc., though all practical, are never denominated arts ; whereas thi.^. appellation is very usually ai)plied to the practical sciences of Logic, lihetoric. Grammar, etc. 1 Alexander Apliiodisiensis, //I Anal. Prior. Lacrtiiis, vii. 39; rseudo-riutai-cli. P^ P'.nt p. 2, (cd. 1520). Ammpnius, In Categ. c. 4; PA//. I'roucm. It is.'iomctimis, but nppnrcntly Philoponiis, In AnaX. Prior, f. 4; Cramer's without much reason, attributed to I'lato. Arucilom, vol. i\ . p. 417. Compare the Au- .'^ee Cicero, ylcro- posed ha])piness as their end, — and as happiness was an energy, or at least the concomitant of energy, these sciences terminated in action, and were consequently pntctical, not productire. On the other hand. Logic, Rhetoric, etc., did not terminate in a mere, — an evanescent action, but in a ]>cniiaiiciit, — an enduring ]>r<^duct. For the end of Logic was tlie production of a reasoning, the end of Rhetoric the pro(biction of an oiation, and so forth.- This dis- tinction is not i>eihaps beyond the reau- to ni,> -yap tiVij/ ivfpyfiai *'''"" I'i>-'^t nctioiicni iH-iiiuuKt. Nam Tootica Tk hi Trap' alnhs ipya Tivd. Vn,l. vi. 4; '''''"' '>( OTrJ) toO Trmfr^ .Ilia- taiiU'i. imlii.il)i- Mngnn Mornlia, i. .3r>. (f. (Juiiililian, Ixsl,- '''" i'>:H«'i'H" """ tniotat. ii.-erhaps, to notice that the rule applies only to the philoso])hical sciences, — to those which received their form and denominations from the learned. The mechanical dexter- ities were beneath their notice; and these were accordingly left to receive their appellations from those who knew nothing of the Aris- totelic pro])rieties. Accordingly, the term art is in them applied, without distinction, to ])roductive and unproductive operations. We speak of the art of rope-dancing, equally as of tiie art of rope- making. But to leturn. The division of philosophy into Theoretical and Practical is the most important that has been made ; and it in Universality of the that which has entered into nearly all the dis- division of I'liiioso- tributions attempted by modern philosophers. ^ „ ^. , Bacon was the first, after the revival of letters, and Practical. ... Bacon. who essayed a distribution of the sciences and of philosophy. He divided all human knowl- edge into History, Poetry, and Philosophy. Philosophy he dis- tinguished into branches conversant about the Deity, about Nature, and about Man ; and each of these had their subordinate divisions, which, however, it is not necessary to j^articularize.^ Descartes ^ distributed philosophy into theoretical and practical, with various subdivisions ; but his followers Descartes and liis , i. ^ l.^ ~\- • • i?T • "nr^i adopted the division ot Lioo-ic, iuetai)hysics, followers. ^ ' _ ^ . . Physics, and Ethics.^ Gassendi recognized, like the ancients, three parts of philosophy. Logic, Physics, and Ethics,^ and this, along with many other of Gassendi's (.assendi; Locke; f|o(.trines, was adopted bv Locke.5 Kant dis- Kant: Ficlite. . . , . * , . , tinguished philosophy into theoretical and prac- tical, with various subdivisions;'^ and the distribution into theoreti- cal and practical was also established by Fichte. " 1 Advancement of hearning, IFort.s, vol. ii. \}\i. ica, et a Rationali snu Logica, necnon a Morall 100, 124, (ed. Jlontagu.) De Augmentis Scien- seu Practica. Disput. Phys. i., Opera, p. 54. tiarum, lib. ii. c. 1, lib. iii. c. 1; Works, vol. — Ed. ■ Tiii. pp. 87, 152. — Ed. 4 Syntagmn Philosophium, Lib. Prooem. c. 9. 2 See the Prefatory Epistle to the Principia. [Opera. Lugduni, 1658, vol. i. p. 29.) — Ed. — Ed. 5 EssOy, book iv. ch. 21. — Ed. 3 See Sylvain Regis, Cours entier de Philoso- tJ Kriti/c der reinen Vemunft, Metbodeulehre, pAi>. contenant la Logique, la Jletaphy.sique, c. 3. — Ed. la Physique, et la Morale. C'f. Clauberg: — " Grundlage der gesammten Wi.isencha/lsUfire, " Physica .... Philasophia Naturalis die- 54. (Herif, vol. i. p. 126.) — Ed. itur; distiucta a Supernaturali sou Metaphys- Lect. Vn. METAPHYSICS. 85 I have now concluded the Lectures crenernlly introductory to the proi)er business of the Coiu'se. In these lec- Ccnclusion of In- ^^^^.^^^ f^.^^^^ ^,1^, o^nieral nature of the subjects, troductory lectures. ,i V~" • • i ■ ' i I was conipelleu to anticipate conclusions, and to depend on your being able to supply a good deal of what it was impossible for me articulately to explain. I now enter upon the consideration of the matters which are hereafter to occupy our attention, with comparatively little apprehension, — for, in these, we shall be able to dwell more ujwn details, while, at the same time, the subject will open upon us by degrees, so that, every step that we proceed, we shall find the progress easier. But I have to warn you, that you Avill prol)ably find the very commencement the most arduous, and this not only because you will come less inured to difficulty, but because it will there be necessary to deal with prin- ciples, and these of a general and abstract nature ; whereas, having once mastered these, every subsequent step will be comparati\ ely easy. "Without entering upon details, I may noAV summarily state to you the order whicli I propose to follow in the Order of the Course. . ^ mi • • t • ensuing Course. 11ns requires a preliminary exposition of the different departments of Philosophy, in order that you may obtain a comprehensive view of the proper objects of our consideration, and of the relations in which they stand to others. Science and ])hiloso])hy are conversant either about 3Iinear? ."J", AN'liat are (lie real Kosults, not immediately manifested, which these facts or phenomena war- rant us in drawing ? If we consider the minlied the term urEsthetic to the doctrine which we \ aguely and jieriphrastically denominate tlie Philosophy of Taste, the theory ot the Fine Aits, the science of the Beautiful and Sublime,^ etc., — and this term is now in general acceptance, not only in Germany, but throughout the other i-ountries of Europe. Tiie tenn Aj)olaustic would have been a more appro])riate designation. Finally, the Nomology of our Conativc powers 3. Nomology on he j^ Practical Philosopln-, iTonerlv so called; for ConiU i\ o rowers. ,'.•.', , " . ... practienl pliilosopliy is sinijdv the science or the laws regulative of our \\\\\ .in-l Desires, in relation to the end 1 Baumgni ten's work on this subject, entitleil .Esthfiica (two vols.), was jiublished iu 1750 68.- El.. 88 METAPHYSICS. Lect. VII A'hich our conative powers propose, — i. e. the Good. This, as it considers these laws in relation to man as an Ktliics; Politics. .,..,, . , . individual, or iii i-olation to man as a member of society, will be divided into two braiiohes, — Ethics and Poli- tics ; and these again admit of various subdivisions. So much for those j^ai'ts of the Philosophy of Mind, whicli are conversant about Phoenoraena, and about Laws. The Third great branch of this philosophy is that which is engaged in the deduction of Inferences, or Results. In the First branch, — the Phjenomenology of mind, — philo.so- phy is properly limited to the facrts afforded in HI. Ontology, or • • i i i • i • ^i "• ' consciousness, considered exclusively m them- Metaphysics Proper. selves. But thege facts may be such as not only to be objects of knowledge in themselves, but likeAvise to furnish us with grounds of inference to something out of themselves. As effects, and effects of a certain character, they may enable us to infer the analogous character of their unknown causes ; as phaMiom- ena, and phaenomena of peculiar qualities, they may Avai'rant us in drawing many conclusions regarding the distinctive character of that unknown principle, of that unknoAvn substance, of which they are the manifestations. Although, therefore, existence be only revealed to us in phrenomena, and though we can, therefore, have only a relative knowledge either of mind or of matter; still, by inference and analogy, we may legitimately attempt to rise above the mere appearances whicli experience and observation afford. Thus, for example, the existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul are not given us as phaenomena, as objects of immediate knowledge ; yet, if the j^hjBnomena actually given do necessarily require, for their rational explanation, the hypotheses of immortality and of God, Ave are assuredly entitled, from the existence of the former, to infer the reality of the latter. Now, the science con- versant about all such inferences of unknown being from its known manifestations, is called Oxtology, or Metaphysics Phopee. We might call it Ixferential Psychology. The following is a tabular view of the distribution of Philosophy as here proposed : — Mind or Conacioiisnew affords ,, ^ ,,, . { Cognitions, tacts, — PhasnomenoIOKy, \ ^ ,. x^ . ■ . « ■ , =•" J Feelings. Empirical Psychology. J * r> ,n'n i r> • % ( Conative Powers (A\ ill and Desire). /' Cognitions, — Logic. Laws. — >'omology , Rational ^ Feelings, — Esthetic. Psychology. 1 rr.„Si,r^ p^wo.v, ( Moral Philosophy. ( Conative Po^vei^. | ^,„y^^i^^^ Philosophy Results, — Ontology, Infer- ( Being of God. ential Psychology. | Inimoi-talify of the Soul, etc. In this distribution of the philosophical sciences, you will observe Lect. VII. METAPHYSICS. 8i> that I take little account of the celebrated division of 2)hilosophy into Speculative and Practical, which I have Meauiiigoftiie term. i • i already explained to you,' for I call only one minor division of philosophy practical, — ■ viz. the Nomology of the Conative powers, not because that science is not equally theoretical Avith any other, but simply because these powers are properly called practical, as tending to practice or overt action. Such is the distribution of Philosophy, which I venture to pro pose as the sim})lest and most exhaustive, and I shall now proceed, in reference to it, to specify the particular branches whicli form the objects of our consideration in the present course. The subjects assigned to the various chairs of the Philosophical Faculty, in the different Universities of Europe, Distribution of sub- -ware not Calculated upon any comprehensive jucts in Fiiciiltv of • i^ ii i J? 1 •! 1 1 /> ii • ;,., , . , ■„ . View ot the ])arts oi philosophv, and of their J'lulosoptiy in tlie Uni- * _ '■ . . versities of Europe. natural connection. Our universities were foundetl when the Aristotelic philosophy was the dominant, or rather the exclusive, system, and the ])arts distrib- uted to the different classes, in the faculty of Arts or Philosophy,, were recfulated bv the contents of certain of the Aristotelic books, and by the order in which they were studied. Of these, there were always Four great divisions. There was first Logic, in relation to the Organon of Aristotle ; secondly, ^f<>taphysics, relative to his books under that title; thirdly. Moral Philosophy, rclatiAC to his Ethics, Politics, and Econcjmics ; and, fourthly, Physics, relative to his Physics, and the collection of treatises styled in the schools the Panui Naturali((. But every university had not a full comi)lement of classes, that is, did not devote a separate year to each of the four subjects of study; and, accordingly, in those seats of learning where three years formed the curriculum of philosophy, two of these branches were combined. In this university. Logic and Met- a])hysics were taught in the same year; in others, Metajthysics and Moral Philosophy Avere conjoined; and, when the old practice Avas abandoned of the several Regents or Professors carrying on their students through every departnieiit, the tAvo branches which had been taught in the same year were assigned to the s.ime chair. What is most curious in the matter is this, — .Vristotle's treatise (hi the Sol// being, (along Avith his lesser treatises on Mi mori/ mn/ J{e)niniscenci,o\\ Sc/isc <'/t.i/ its O'lji rts, vtr.,) iiiclmlrd in the I'ltmt JVaturalHi, and, he having declared that tlie consideration of tin* soul Avas ]»art of the philoso]>hy of nature.- the science of Mind 1 SveniiU. |i 8). — K:>. -mpl \^i>x~ii, ?) iriffrjj *; t"s Toiavrjis. Cf 2 De Aiiinid, i. 1. ♦ytriiroi' to dfu'p'trat Mrifi]ili. \ .\ ^'\oi' n^i.'i ^>.i iv Toli proj)riate to their departments, taught both by the Professors of Moral Philosophy and by the Pro- fessors of Logic and Metaphysics, — for you are not to suppose that metaphysics and psychology are, though vulgaily used as synon- ymous expressions, by any means the same. So much for the his- torical accidents which have affected the subjects of the different chairs. • T noAV return to the distribution of philosophy, which I have given you, and, first, by exclusion, I shall tell Subjects appiopn- ^^^ what docs not Concern us. In this class, ate to this Chair. "^ , ' we have nothing to do with Practical Philoso- phy, ^ — -that is. Ethics, Politics, Economics. But, with this excep- tion, there is no other branch of philosophy which is not either specially allotted to our consideration, or Avhich does not fall nat- urally within our sphere. Of the former description, are Logic, and Ontology or Metaphysics Proper. Of tlie latter, are Psychol- ogy, or the Philosophy of Mind in its stricter signification, and ^Esthetic. These subjects are, however, collectively too extensive to be overtaken in a single Course, and, at the same (impie leiiMon ai time, somc of them are too abstract to afford ortkr of the Courst. the proper materials for the instruction of those only commencing the study of philosophy. In fact, the depart- ment allotted to this chair comprehends the two extremes of phi- losophy, — Logic, forming its appro])riate introduction, — Meta- physics, its necessary consummation. I propose, therefore, in order fairly to exhaust the business of the chair, to divide its subjects between two Courses, — the one on Phienomenology, Psychology, or Mental Philosophy in general; the other, on Nomology, Logic, or the laws of the Cognitive Faculties in particular.^ Tb Tj eart Cv'^f'^" kcu 6pi(f(r^aL, Koi Siori Koi phy, strictly so called, witli the geience which vepl \^jvxvs eVi'as ^eaipriaai rov (jivcTLKov, bar) is conversant with the Manifestations of'Mind, fi^ 6,p(u TTJs uA.Tjs iariv. — Ed. — Thainomenology, or I'sychology. I sh.-'ll 1 From the following sentences, which ap- then proceed to Logic, the science which con- pear in the manuscript lecture as superseded siders the Laws of Thought; and finally, to by the paragraph given in the text, it is obvi- Ontology, or Metaphysics proper, the philos- ous that tlie Author liad orighially designed ophy of Results. jKstlietic, or the theory of to discuss specifically, and with greater detail, the Pleasurable, I should consider subse- the three grand departments of I'hilosophy quently to Logic, and previously to Ontol- indicatcd in tlie distribution proposed by him : ogy" — On the propriety of according to Psy- — "The plan which 1 propose to adopt in the chology the first place jn the order of tliephil- distribution of the Course, or rather Courses, osophical sciences, see Cousin, Cours de I' Hi.i- is the following : toire de la Philosophie, Deuxieme Serie, torn, ii " I shall commence with Mental Philoso- p. 71-73 (ed. 1S4T). — Eu. LECTURE Yin. PSYCHOLOGY, ITS DEFINITION. EXPLICATION OF TERMS. I NOW pass to the First Division of my subject, -which will occu2)y the present Course, and commence with a definition of Psychol- ogy, — The PnyENOMENOLoGY OF Mind. Psychology, or the Philosophy of the Human Mind, strictly so denominated, is the science conversant about I)ctiiiition of Psv- ^i 7 y^ j* j j. c the plimnonieud. or inoamcations. or st((tes or the 3fiiid, or Conscious- Subject^ or SouJ, or Spirit., or Self., or JlJyo, In this definition, you will observe that I have purposely accumu- lated a variety of expressions, in order that I Explication of term.s. ■ -, ■, 1 i- • n ^ • might have the earliest opportunity ot making you acciTrately acquainted Avith their meaning; for they are terms of vital importance and frequent use in philosophy. — Before, there- fore, proceeding furtlier, I shall pause a moment in exjihination of the terms in which this definition is expressed. Without restrict- ing myself to the tbllowing order, I shall consider the word Psy- chologi/ • the correlative terms siihject and SKhstance, j>h(i'uome)wn, rnodifiratloiu stdte, etc., and, at the same time, take occasion to exjiliiin another correlative, the expression object., and, finally, the words mind., soid, sjnrit, self, and effo. Indeed, after considering these terms, it may not l)e improj)cr to take u)», in one series, the i)hilosophical expressions of principal importance and most ordinary occurrence, in order to render less fre(jii('nt the necessity of interrujiting the course of our procedure, to afford the recpiisite verbal explanations. The t((rm P.-tii/, is of Greek compound, its elements i/txV» signifying .>ut, though composed of Greek elements, it is, like the greater number of the comi>ounds of Xoyo?, of motlcrn combi- mition. I may be asked, — why use an exotic, a technical name? Why not be contenteil with the more popular terms, Pliilnsopliy of Mind, or Mental IMiilosojihy, — Science of ]\Iind or MentiJ 92 METAPHYSICS. Lect. VLU. Science? — expressions by which this department of knowledge has been usually designated by those who, in this country, have cultivated it with the most distinguished success. To tliis there are several answers. In the first place, philosophy itself, and all, or almost all, its branches, have, in our language, received Greek technical denominations; — why not also the most important of all, the science of mind? In the second place, the term psychology is now, and has long been, the ordinary expression for the doctrine of mind in the philosojjhical language of every other European nation. Nay, in point of fact, it is now naturalized in English,, psychology and psychological having of late yeai's come into com- mon use ; and their employment is warranted by the authority of the best English writers. It was familiarly employed by one of our best Avriters, and nujst acute metaphysicians, Principal Camp- bell of Aberdeen;^ and Dr. Beattic, likewise, has entitled. the first part of his Elements of Moral Science^ — that which treats of the mental foculties, — Psychology. To say nothing of Coleridge, the late Sir James Mackintosh was also an advocate for its employ- ment, and justly censured Dr. Brown for not using it, in place of his very reprehensible expression, — Physiology of Mind^ the title of his imfinished text-book.^ But these are reasons in themselves of comparatively little nioment : they tend merely to show thnt,^ if otherwise expedient, the nomenclature is permissible ; and that it is expedient, the following reasons Avill prove. For, in the tliird place, it is always of consequence for the sake of precision to be able to use one word instead of a plurality of wtjrds, — especially^" where the frequent occurrence of a descriptive appellation might occasion tedium, distraction, and disgust ; and this must necessarily occur in the treatment of any science, if the science be able to possess no single name vicarious of its definition. In this respect, therefore, Psychology IS preferable Xo Philosophy of Mind. But, in the fourth place, even if the employment of the description for the name could, in this instance, be tolerated when used substan- tively, what are we to do when we require, (which we do unceas- ingly,) to use the denomination of the science adjectively? For example, I have occasion to say a ^psychological fiict, a psychological law, a ])sychological curiosity, etc. How can Ave express these by the descrij)tive appellation ? A psychological fact may indeed be styled a fact considered relatively to the philosophy of the human mind, — a ])S}chological law nuiy be called a law by which the 1 Philosophy of Rhetoric, vol. i. p. 143, (1st losophy. in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol ed.); p. 123, (ed. 1816.)— Kd. i. p. 399., (7th ed.) — Ed. 2 Dissertation on the progress of Ethical Phi- Lect. VIII. ^i r. T A r 1 1 Y s I c s . 93 mental phaenomcna are governed, — a psychological curiosity may be rendered — by what, I reaUy do not know. But liow iniserably weak, awkward, tedious, and affected, is the comnnitation wlien it r.m be made; not-only do the vivacity and precision of the original evaporate, the me:iuin<^ itself is not even adequately conveyed. But this defect is still more manifestly shown when we wish to place in contrast the matters proper to this science, with the mat ters proper to others. Thus, for example, to say, — this is a psy- chological, not a ])hysiological, doctrine — this is a psychological observation, not a logical inference. How is the contradistinction to be expressed by a periphrasis? It is impossible, — for the inten- sity of the contrast consists, first, in the two opposite terms being single words, and second, in their being both even technical and precise Greek. This necessity has, accordingly, compelled the adoption of the terms psychology and psychological into the phi- losophical nomenclature of every nation, even where tlie same necessity did not vindicate the employment of a non-Acrnacular -expression. Thus in Germany, though the native language affords a facility of composition only inferior to the Greek, and though it }>ossesses a word {Seelenlehre) exactly correspondent to xjwxoXoyLa, yet because thi& substantive did not easily allow of an atljective flexion, the Greek terms, substantive and adjective, were both adopted, and have been long in as familiar use in the Empire, as the terms geog- raphy and geograpliical, — physiology and physiological, are with us. What I have now said may suffice to show that, to supply neces- sity, we must introduce these words into our The terms riiysioi- philosophical vocal)ulary. But the propriety of ogy and I'hysics, i>s ^]^-^^ j^. g^jij f^^y^l^^.^. J,), own by the inauspicious applied to tlu' jiliiioso- i i i i i i phy of mind, iuappro- attempts that havc bccu recently made on the priate. name of the science. As I have mentioned be- fore, Dr. Blown, in the very title of the abridg- ment of his lect»nes on mental philosophy, has styled this pliiloso- phy, "77^^ P/ii/sio/f>f/i/ oftlir Ihnuim ^fiiid;^'' an Nature of Btins: anil thf Prntp-fssion ofrristenrf. eriior I'ownall. — El>. London, 1795. Inlellertual Physics, an Essay 94 METAPHYSICS. Legt. VIIL these laws as regulating the phjenomena of organic and inorganic bodies. Tlie empire of nature is the enijnre of a mechanical neces- sity; the necessity of nature, in philosophy, stands op})Osed to the liberty of intelligence. Those, accordingly, who do not allow that mind is matter, — who hold that there is in man a principle of action superior to the deteniiinations of a physical necessity, a brute or blind fote — must regard the application of the terms Physiology and Physics to the doctrine of the mind as either singuhirly ina|)- yropriate, or as significant of a fiilse hypothesis in regard to the character of the thinking principle. Mr. Stewart objects^ to the term SpirU, as seeming to imj)ly an h^niothesis concerning the nature and essence Spirit, Soul. _ , . 1 • 1 • ••11 1 01 the sentient or thinking principle, altogether unconnected with our conclusions in regard to its phaenomena, and their general laws; and, for the same reason, he is disposed to object to the words Pneumatology and Psychology ; the former of which was introduced by the schoolmen. In regard to Spirit and Pneu- matology, Mr. Stewart's criticism is perfectly just. They are un- necessary ; and, besides the etymological metaplior, they are asso- ciated with a certain theological limitation, which sjioils them as expressions of philosophical generality.^ But this is not the case with Psychology. For though, in its etymology, it is like almost all metaphysical terms, originally of physical application, still this had been long forgotten even by the Greeks ; and, if we were to reject philosophical expressions on this account, we should be left without any terms foi* the mental phaenomena at all. The term soul, (and what I say of the term soul is true of the term spirit^ though in this country less employed than the term mind, may be regarded as another synonym for the unknown basis of the mental phajnomena. Like neai'ly all the words significant of the internal world, there is here a metaphor borrowed from the exteraal ; and this is the case not merely in one, but, as far as we can trace the analogy, in all languages. You are aware that orrespon ing erms ^v-^-n, tlic Greek term for soul, comes from lAuYO), in other languages. j /\ » t /\ I breathe or blow, — as irvevfjia in Greek, and spiritus in Latin, from verbs of the same signification. In like \ Philosophical Essays, Prelim. Dissert, ch. spiritual substances, — God. — Angels, and 1; Works, vol. V. p. 20. Devils, — and Man. Thus — ,, . 1 [ 1- Theologia (Naturalis), Pneumatolo- „ . , , . r> 2 [The terms Psychology and Pneumatolnsy, prjaorPneu- J Angelographia, Daemon- or Piifinnntic. are not equivalents. The latter matica ' "'"S'^- word was used tor the doctrine of spirit in ' i ^" P*ychologia. general, which wa.s subdivided into three — See Theoph. Gale, Gale Logica, p. 455- branches, as it treated of the three orders of (1681).] Lect. viii. metaphysics. 95 manner, anlma and anhnns are words wliieli, though in Latin they have lost their primary signification, and are only known in their secondary or metaphorical, yet, in their original physical meaning, are preserved in the Greek ave/Ao?, ^oind or air. The English smd, and the German Seele^ come from a Gothic root sair<(Ir- poris^ This author had the merit of first giving the name Afifhro- pologia to the science of man in general, which he diviiletg/<(, the doctrine of the Ilunian Mind; the second, Somatologia, the doctrine of the Human Body ; and these thus introduced and apjdied, still continue to be the usual ap- pellations of these branches of knowledge in Germany. I would not say, however, that Casmann was the true author of the It-rni 1 See Grimm, Deutsche Gmmmntik. vol. ii. p. Gale, Philmtopkia Generalh. pp. 321,322. Prich. 99. In Anglo-Sa.xon, Sawet, Sawal, Sawl, ard. Review of the Doctrine of a Vital Principle^ Saul. — ElK p. 5, e.] 2 Scotch, Ghnist. Gastlij. 4 [On this point see Leibnitz, Nouv. Ess. lib 3 [See H. Schmid, Versuch einer Metnphysik iii. c. i. §5; Siew&rX, Phil. Essays — Works. \o\ d'r innrren Xnlur. p. 60, note. Scheidlers Puj- v. Essay v.; Brown, Human UniUrstanding, thologie, pp. 299 .3(11, 320. W seg. Cf. Thi-op. ji. 3SS, ft .'(?.] ^6 MKT A PHYSICS. Lect. VIIL psycholo(jii^ for his master, tlie celebrated Rudolphiis Goclenius of Marburg, published, also in 1594, a work entitled, ">I'v;!(oXoyta, Aoc est^ de Jroinhiis Perfections, A)ihna, etc,'' being a collection of dis- sertations on the subject ; in 1596 another, entitled "Z>e ^yrceclpiiis Materiis Psycfiolofiicisr and in 1597 a third, entitled " Anthores Varii de Psyehologia^'' — so that I am inclined to attiibute the origin of the name to Goclenius. ^ Subsequently, the term became the usual title of the science, and this chiefly through the authority * of "Wolf, whose two principal Avorks on the subject are entitled " Psycliohxjia Empirical'' and '■'• PsycJiologia Patio7ialisP Charles Bonnet, in his " Essai de Psychologies'' ^ familiarized the name in France ; where, as well as in Italy, — indeed, in all the Continental countries, — it is now the common appellation. In the second place, I said that Psychology is conversant about the pJiwnomena of the thinking subject, etc., and I now proceed to expound the import of the correlative terms phmnomenon, subject, etc. But the meaning of these terms will be best illustrated by now stating and explaining the great axioin, that all human knowledge, consequently that all human philoso})liy, is only of the relatiA»e or j)h{Tenomenal. In this proposition, the term relative is opposed to the term absolute ; and, therefore, in saying that we know only the relative, I virtuallv assert that we know nothing The correlative terms ,, ,." .. iii i* Pha^uomenon. Sub- absolutc, — uothmg cxistmg absolutely ; that is, ject, illustrated by re- in and for itsclf, and without relation to us and ference to the rciativ- om- taculties. I shall illustrate this by its appli- 1 > o lumau now - cation. Our knowledo-e is either of matter or edge. •^ of mind. Now, what is matter ? What do we know of matter ? Matter, or body, is to us the name either of some- thing known, or of something unknown. In so for as matter is a name for something known, it means that which appears to us under the forms of extension, solidity, divisibility, figure, motion, rough- ness, smoothness, color, heat, cold, etc. ; in short, it is a common name for a certain series, or aggregate, or complement, of aj:)pear- ances or phaenomena manifested in coexistence. But as the phoenomena apj)ear only in conjunction, we are com- pelled by the constitution of our nature to think thoni conjoined in and by something; and as tliey are phtenomena, we cannot think them the phaenomena of notliing, but must regard them as the pro- perties or qualities of something that is extended, solid, figured, etc. But this something, absolutely and in itself, — /. e. considered apart 1 [The term psychology is, however, used by cnrum Cnmmuniinn, prefixed to liis Ciceron Joannes Thomas Freigius in the Catnlogus Lo- ianu^, 1575. S'.'e also Gale, Logica, p. 455. J 2 Publislied in 1755. — Ed. Lkct. viit. metaphysics. 97 from its phajnomena, — is to us as zero. It is only in its qualities, only in its effects, in its relative or pha^nomenal existence, that it is cognizable or conceivable ; and it is only by a law of thought, which compels us to think something, absolute and unknown, as the basis or condition of the relative and known, that this something obtains a kind of incomprehensible reality to us. Now, that which mani- fests its (pialities, — in other words, that in which the appearing causes inhere, that to which they belong, is called their si(hjecf, or substance, or substratum. To this subject of the pha^nomena of ex- tension, solidity, etc., the term matter or material substance is com- monly given ; and, therefore, as contradistinguished from these qualities, it is the name of something unknown and inconceivable. The same is true in regard to the term mind. In so far as mind is the common name for the states of knowing, Avilling, feeling, de- siring, etc., of Avhich I am conscious, it is only the name for a certain series of connected pha?noniena or qualities, and, consequently, ex- ]iresses only what is known. But in so far as it denotes that sub- ject or substance in which the phainomena of knowing, willing, etc., inhere, — something behind or under these phaenomenn, — it ex- ]ir(isses what, in itself or in its absolute existence, is unknown. Thus, mind and matter, as known or knowable, are only two dif ferent series of pluenomena or qualities; mind and matter, as un- known and unknowable, are the two substances in which these two different series of phaenomena or qualities, are supposed to inhere. The existence of an unknown substance is only an inference we are compelled to make, from the existence of known phenomena ; ami the distinction of two substances is only inferred from the seeming incomi)atibility of the two series of pluenomena to coinherc in one. Our Avhole knowledge of mind and matter is thus, as we havo said, only relative ; of existence, .ibsolutely and in itself, we know nothim;; and we may say of man what Viriiil savs of ^neas, con- templating in the prophetic sculpture of his shield the future glories of Rome — " Kerumquo ignarus, imagine gaudct."i This is, indeed, a truth, in the admission of which ])hilosophers, In general, have been singularly h.arnxniious ; and General liaimoi.y of the ]>raise that lias l)een lavished on Dr. Kei.i- i ^- ■ iii • .. i 1 . ,, , .. . , for tins ouservatu)!!, is wliollv innnented. In in>; the rt'lativity of human knowiod-c. . fict, I am hardly aware of the philosoj^her who has not proceeded on the supposition, and there are few mIio have not explicitly enounced the observation. It is 1 ^Eneid, viii. 730. — Kd. 13 98 METAPHYSICS. Lect. VIIL only since Reid's death that certain speculators have arisen, who have obtained celebrity by their attempt to found philoso])hy on an immediate knowledge of the absolute or unconditioned, I shall quote to you a fcAV examples of this general recognition, as they happen to occur to my recollection ; and, in order to manifest the better its universality, I purj)0sely ovci-look the testimonies of a more modern philosophy. Aristotle, among many similar observations, remarks in regard to matter, that it is incognizable in itself;' while Testimonies, - of -^ ^.^ ^ ^^ ^^^j^^^j J,,/ ^.,y^ u ^l^.j^ tl,e intellect Aristotle. ^ . „ '. does not know itself directly, bvit only in- directly, in knowing other things ; " - and he defines the soul from its ]thaenomena, " the principle by which we live, and move, and perceive, and understand."^ St. Augustin, the St. Augustin. 1 • 1 n 1 /^i • • /» 1 most plnlosophical oi the Christian lathers, ad- mirably says of body, — " Materiam cognoscendo ignorari, et igno- rando cognosci ;"* and of mind, — "Mens se cognoscit cognoscendo se vivere, se meminisse, se intelligere, se velle, cogitare, scire, judi- care."^ "Non incuiTunt," says Melanchthon, Melanchthon. , , . . , , , " ipsae substantiae m oculos, sed vestitse et oi-ii- atae occidentibus ; hoc est, non possumus, in hac vita, acie oculorum perspicere ipsas substantias : sed utcunque, ex accidentibus qua^ in sensus exteriores incurrunt, ratiocinamur, quomodo inter se differant substantiae." " It is needless to multiply authorities, but I cannot refrain fi-om adducing one other evidence of the genei*al con- The elder Scaliger. ^ -, •■, , , i • i r. sent 01 philosophers to the relative character oi our knowledge, as affording a graphic specimen of the manner of its ingenious author. " Substantias non a nobis cognoscuntur," says the elder Scaliger, " sed earum accidentia. Quis enini me doceat quid sit substantia, nisi miseris illis verbis, res subsistens f Seientiam ergo nostram constat esse umbram in sole. Et sicut vulpes, elusa a ciconia, lambendo vitreum vas jiultem baud attingit : ita nos externa tantuiu accidentia percipiendo, formas intenias non cognoscimus." '^ 1 Metapli. lib. vii. (vi.) c. 10: f^ D'Aij SY^oxr- mana cogitatio, conetur earn (materiam) vel V '.-> ^,-T^ 1 iiosse ignoraudo vel ignorare noscendo." — El> 2 Metaph.^ xii. ixi.) 7. Avrhu 5^ you 6 yovs . j.^^^ ^,,^ ^p^^^^,^^ ^^^^^.^^ attributed to Kara /xiraW^'^w tov yovroV yorjThs yap ^^ ^^^^,j,^^ entitled De Spiritu a Anima, c. -yiyv^Tai S,iryavo,u koL vowv' Cf. De Amrna, ^, ^,^j ^^^. ^^^ Tri,uu,te. lib. x. ( 16, torn. viii. iii. 4. Kal ainhs Ze v(rt)Tos icniv Sxrirfp ra p. 897. (ed. Ben.) • voTjra. — Ed. ,. Emteniatn Diali-ctic-.s, lib. i., Pr. Substan- S De Anima, Jjib. il. c. 2. 'H if/nxv '''ov-rois tin. [Thiff is the text in the edition of Strige- Spi(7Taj, dperrTiKiS, alff^rjriKw SiavortTiKtS, lius. It varies considerably in different edi- KivTjfffi. — Ed. tious. — Ed.] i Confess, xii. 5. " Dum sibi haec dicit hu- ' De Suhtllitau, Ex. cccvii. §'21 Lect. VIII. METAPHYSICS. 99 So far there is no difference of opinion among philosophers in gen- eral. We know mind and matter not in themselves, but in their accidents or phaenomena.^ Thus our knowledge is of relative existence only, seeing that ex- istence in itself, or absolute existence, is no ob- Aii relative exist- ject of knowledge. " But it does not follow that ence not comprised in n , • • . • i .• i „ , , . , ,• f , !^11 relative existence is relative to v/.s ,• that a i what IS relative to us. -> that can be known, even by a limited intelli- gence, is actually cognizable by us. We must, therefore, more pre- cisely limit our sphere of knowledge, by adding, that all we know is known only under the special conditions of our faculties. This is a truth likewise generally acknowledged. "Man," say;^ Pro- tagoras, " is the measure of the imiverse," (Trdi'Twv )(pr]fxdTMv /xeVpov av^/jwTTos), — .a truth which Bacon has well expressed : '' Oiiines per- ceptiones tam sensus quani mentis, sunt ex analogia hominis, non ex analogia universi : estque intellectus humanus instar speculi inac^ualis ad radios rerum, qui suaiu uaturam natura3 rerum immiscet, eamque distorquet et inficit."'' "Omiu' (|uod cognoscitur," says Boethius, " npn secundum sui vim, sed secundum cognoscentiuni potius com- prehenditur facultatem ;" •* and this is expressed almost in the sanm terms by the two very opposite philosophers, Kant and Condillac, — "In ])erception" (to quote only the former) " everything is known according to the constitution of our fiiculty of sense." ^ Now this principle, in which i)hilosopliers of the mo^^t opposite opinions equally concur, divides itself into two This principle has ]„..j„,.],j.j,. J,, , ]'„, first placc, it would be uni.Iiil- two branches. •■ . , 1111 • n osophical to conclude that the properties ot existence necessarily are, in number, only as the number of our faculties of a])])rehending them ; or, in the second, that the jnoper- ties known, are known in their native purity, and without a»m;o(1.s P- Ci-li. — l-n- i Dr Cnnsnl. P/nV. lih. v. I'r. 4. Quoted in •i [ .\hsoIuti- in two senses : V, As opposed to Disnissinns, p. 645. — Kl>. partial; 2'-'. As opi)osid to relative. Hetter if •■> AVi/i/tf/crrein'H I'-MiKii/^t, Vorrede zur /w.i. I had said that our knowledge not of absolute, ten Auflape. Quoted in Disru^^ion^, n Mi nnd, therefore, only of the partial and rela- Cf. iWi/. Transc .iisfh. 4 8. — E.i>- live.] — Pencil Jotting on Blank Leaf 0/ Lecture. 100 METAPHYSICS. Lect. VIII if, on the one hand, we are not entitled to assert as actually exist- ent except what we know ; neither, on the other, 1. The number of are we Warranted in denying, as possibly exist- ihe properties of ex- g^t^ ^.j^at wc do not know. The universe may jsteiice not necessarily , . ■, , n t -i ., u r '>e conceived as a polycfon oi a thousand, or a •dg tlie number of our l JO ' powers of apprehen- hundred thousand, sides or facets, — and each of ''io" these sides or facets may be conceived as rep- resenting one sj^ecial mode of existence. Now, of these thousand sides or modes all may be equally essential, but three or four only may be turned towards us or be analogous to our organs. One side or facet of the universe, as holding a relation to the opgan of sight, is the mode of luminous or visible existence; another, as propoitional to the organ of liearing, is the mode of sonorous or audible existence ; and so on. But if every eye to see, if every ear to hear, were annihilated, the modes of existence to which these organs now stand in relation, — that M'hich could be seen, that Avhich could be heard, would still remain ; and if the in- telligences, reduced to the three senses of touch, smell, and taste, were then to assert the inijjossibility of any modes of being except those to which these three senses were analogous, the procedure would not be more unwarranted, than if we now ventured to deny the possible reality of other modes of material existence than those to the perception of which our five senses are accommodated. I will illustrate this by an hypothetical parallel. Let us suj)pose a block of marble,^ on which there are four different inscriptions, — in Greek, in Latin, in Persic, and in Hebrew, and that four trav- ellers approach, each able to read only the inscription in his native toumio. The Greek is deliijhted with the information the marble aifords him of the siege of Troy. The Roman finds interesting matter regarding the expulsion of the kings. The Persian deciphers an oracle of Zoroaster. And the Jew is surprised by a commemo- ration of the Exodus. Here, as each inscription exists or is signifi- cant only to him who possesses the corresponding language ; so the several modes of existence are manifested only to those intelli- gences who possess the corresponding organs. And as each of the four readers would be rash if he maintained that the marble could be significant only as significant to him, so should we be rash, were we to hold that the universe had no other phases of being than the few that are tui-ned towards our faculties, and which our five senses enable us to perceive. • 1 This illustration is taken from F. Hemsterhuis, Sophyle ou de la PhilosophU —(Euvrti Phil •fophiques, vol. i. p. 281, (ed. 1792.)— Ed. I-ECT. VIII. METAPHYSICS. 101 Voltaire, (ah'i'd ageudo)., has ingoiiiously expressed this truth in one of his pliilosophical romances. " Tell me," Illustrated from Vol- Microme))earance Avhich I cut in the uni\ersc." " If I did not know you to be a philosophei,"' replied Microme- gas, " I should be afraid of distressing you, Avhen 1 tell you, that our life is seven hundred times longer than yours. But Avhat is even that? and, when we come to the last moment, to have lived a 102 METAPHYSICS. Lect. VIIL single day, and to have lived a whole eternity, amount to the same thing. I have been in countries where they live a thousand times longer than with us ; and I have always found them murmuring, just as we do ourselves. But you have seventy-two senses, and they must have told you something about your globe. How many properties has matter Avith you ? " — " If you mean essential prop- erties,"" said the Saturnian, " without Avhich our globe could not subsist, we count three hundred, — extension, impenetrability, mo- bility, gravity, divisibility, and so forth." — "That small nimiber," replied the gigantic traveller, " may be sufficient for the views which the Creator must have had with respect to your narrow hab- itation. Your globe is little ; its inhabitants are so too. You have few senses ; your matter has few qualities. In all this, Providence has suited you most haj^pily to each other." " The academician was more and more astonished with every- thing which the traveller told him. At length, after communicating to each other a little of what they knew, and a great deal of what they knew not, and reasoning as well and as ill as philosophers usually do, they resolved to set out together on a little tour of the universe." ^ Before leaving this subject, it is perhaps projier to observe, that had we faculties equal in number to all the possible modes of exist- ence, whether of mind or matter, still would our knowledge of mind or matter be only relative. If material existence could ex- hibit ten thousand phaniomena, and if we ])ossessed ten thousand senses to ap])rehend these ten thousand i^liaenomcna of material existence, — of existence absolutely and in itself, we should be then as ignorant as we are at present. But the consideration that our actual faculties of knowledge are probal)ly wholly inadequate in number to the :2. The properties of possible modes of being, is of comparatively existence not known . i i i . , . in their native purity. ^^^^ nupoitance tluiu the Other consideration to which we now proceed, — that whatever we know is not known as it is, but only as it seems to us to be ; for it is of less importance that our knowledge should be limited than that our knowledge should be pure. It is, therefore, of the highest moment that we should be aware that what we know is not a sira- ]»le relation apprehended betAveen the object known and the subject knowing, — but that every knowledge is a sum made up of several elements, and that the great business of philoso])hy is to analyze and discriminate these elements, and to determine from whence these contributions have been derived. I shall explain what 1 1 Mieromcgas, chap, ii — Ed. Lect. Vm. METAPHYSICS. 108 mean, by an example. In the perception of an external object, the mind does not know it in immediate relation Illustrated by ti.e ^^ j^^^j^^^ ^^^^^ mediatolv in relation to the ma- act of perception. ' tc ^v. ^ terial organs oi sense. It, thereiore, we were to throw these organs out of consideration, and did not take into account whnt they contribute to, and how they modify, our knowl- edge of that object, it is evident, that our conclusion in regard to the nature of external })erceptiou would be erroneous. Again, an object of ])erception may not even stand in immediate relation to the org.in of sense, but may make its impi-ession on that organ throufrh an interveninir medium. Now, if this medium be thrown out of account, and if it l>e not considered that the real external object is the sum of all that externally conti'ibutes to aftcct the sense, we shall, in like manner, run into error. For example, I see a book, — I see that book through an external medium, (what that medium is, we do iiot now imjuirc,) — and I see it through my organ of sight, the eye. Now, as the full object presented to the mind (observe that I say the mind), in j^erception, is an object <-()nipoundcd of the external object emitting or reflecting light, /. t . niodifving the external medium, — of this external medium, — and of the living organ of sense, in their mutual relation, — let us sup- pose, in the example I have taken, that the full or adequate object ) crceived is equal to twelve, and that this amount is made up of three several parts, — of four, coiitributctl by the book, — of four, contribnt('(l by all that intervenes between the book and tlie organ, and of lour, contributed by the living organ itself.^ I use tliis illustration to show, that the ])lKenomen()n of the ex- ternal object is not presented immediately to the mind, but is known by it only as moditicd through certain intermediate agencies; and to show that sense itself may be a source of error, if we do not analyze and distinguish what elements, in an act of j)erception, belong to the outward reality, what to the outwaiil ineijium, and wliat to the action of sense itself But this source of error is not limited to our ]>erceptions ; and we are liable to be deceived, not merely by not distinguishing in an act of knowledge what is con- tributed by sense, but by not distinguishing what is contributed by the mind itself Tliis is the nutst difficult and ini|iortant function of philosophy; and the greater number of its higlur prolilems arise in the attempt to determine the shares to which the knowing subject, and the object known, may pretend in the total act of cognition. For according as we attribiUe a large r ov a smaher proportion to 1 This illustrntion is borrowed in un im- Snphylf oh ilt In Philosophif — CSufrrx Philoso proved form from F. Hemsterlniis. See his phiqurf. i. 279. — Ed. 104 MKTAPHYSICS. Lkct. VI I each, we either run into tlie extremes of Idealism and Mnteriaiisni, or maintain an equilibrium between the two. But, on this subject, it would be out of place to say anything further at present. From what has been said, you Avill be able, I hope, to understand what is meant by the ])r:)position, that all our In what senses hu- knowledge Is Only relative. It is relative, 1°, man knowledge is rel- , . • i i i i i ^jjyg because existence is not cognizable, absolutely and in itself, but only in special modes; 2°, Because these modes can Ue known only if they stand in a certain relation to our faculties ; and, 3°, Because the modes, thus relative to our faculties, are presented to, and known by, the mind only under modifications determined by these faculties themselves. This general doctrine being j^remised, it Avill be proper now to take some special notice of the several terms significant of the relative nature of our knowledge. And here there are two opposite series of ex- pressions, — 1°, Those Avhich denote the relative Two opposite series ^^^ ^^^ known ; 2°, Thosc which denote the of terms as applied to /^r^ i r human knowledge. absolute and the unknown. Ot the tormer class, are the woixls p/i/t^iw/nenon, mocfe, modifi- c:atioH, state, — words which are employed in the definition of Psy- chology ; and to these may be added the analogous terms, — quaUty, iwoperty, attribute, accident. Of the latter class, — that is, the abso- lute and the imknown, — is the word subject, which mc have to explain as an element of the definition, and its analogous expres- sions, substance and substraticii}. These opposite classes cannot be explained apart ; for, as each is correlative of the other, each can be comprehended only in and through its correlative. The term subject (subjectmn, vTroo-racrts, viroKeifxevov) is used tO denote the unknown basis which lies under the The term Subject. . • r. i • i various jihaenomena or properties ot which we become aware, whether in our internal or external experience. In tlie more recent philosophy, es])ecially in that of Germany, it has^ however, been principally employed to denote the basis of the various mental phaiiiomena ; but of this special signification we are hereafter more particularly to speak.' The word substance {substantia) may be employed in two^ but two kindred, meanings. It may be used either to denote that which exists absolutely and of itself; in this sense it may be viewed as derived from subsiste/zdo, nnd as meaning ens per se subsistens/ or it may be viewed as the basis of attributes, in which sense it may be regarded as derived from substando, and as meaning id quod 1 For the liistory and various meanings of note, lit (V/'s IVurlcs, p. 806. See also Trendel. the terms Subject and Object, see the Author's enburg. Elrmfnta Logices AristoteliceK,^ 1. — Ed. Lkct. VIII. METAPHYSICS. 105 substat aecidentibus^ like the Greek {m-oo-Tao-is, viroKUfxevov. In eitlver case it will, however, signify the same thing, viewed in a different aspect. In the former meaning, it is considered in contrast to, and independent of, its attribntes ; in the latter, as conjoined with these, and as affording them the condition of existence. In different rela- tions, a thing may be at once considered as a substance, and as an (ittri-bute, quality, or mode. Tliis |)aper is a substance in i-elation to the attribute of white; but it is itself u mode in rcl.itiou to the sub- stance, matter. Substance is thus a term for the substivitum we are obliged to think to all that we variously denominate a modcy a state., a quality, an attribute, ^property, an accident, ^ pfianumienon, an ap)- pearance, etc. These, though expressions generically the same, are, however, used with S2)ecific distinctions. The terms mode, state, quality, attribute, pi'opjerty, accident, are employed \\\ reference to a substance, as existing ; the terms phfunoraenon , aj)pearance^ etc. in reference to it, as known. But each of these expressions has also its peculiar signification. .V )node is the manner of the existence of a thing. Take, for example, a piece of wax. The wax may be round, or square, or of any other definite figure ; it may also be solid, or fluid. Its existence in any of these modes is not essential; it may change from one to the other without any substantial alteration. As the mode cannot exist without a substance, we can accord to it only a secondary or preca- rious existence in relation to the substance, to which we accord the privilege of existing by itself, ^9er se e'xistere; but though the sub- stance be not astricted to any particular mode of existence, we must not su])pose that it can exist, or, at least, be conceived by us to exist in none. All modes are, tlierefore, variable states; and though some mode is necessary for the existence of a thing, any individual mode is accidental. Tlio word inodl- ModificatiDii. ... i i i • • i • • ^ pcation IS jirojxTly the bnugmg a tiling into a certain mode of existence, but it is vciy commonly em|iloyed for the mode of existence itself. State is a term nearlv svnonvmous with mode, l)ut of a mean- ing more e\tiMisiv(\ as not exclusively limitc*! to the mutable ami contingent. Quidity is, likewise, a Avord of a wider signification, for therr an- essential and a<(idcntal qualities.' Tlic essential (|ualities of a thing are those ajilitudes, those inMuncis of existence and action, whi<-li it cannot lose without ceasing to be. For examph'. in man the faculties of sense mid intelligence; in body, the dimensions of 1 Till' ffrm i/iKi'iii/ ,-li<)!i'.«!. i:i .-1: ic": i->- . be ciaiJlu-d In acc-iiV-iital jittributes. Sep the Author's nolo, Keift's Wtirk-s \> t^i'- — l-,i>. u 106 METAPHYSICS. Lect. VIIL length, breadth, and thickness ; in God, the attributes of eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, etc. By accidental (juaiity, Essential qualities, are meant those aptitudes and manners and accidental. ^ i • i • i i of existence and action, which substances have at one time and not at another ; or which they liave always, but may lose Avithout ceasing to be. For example, of the transitory class are the whiteness of a wall, the health which we enjoy, the fineness of the weather,* etc. Of the permanent class are the grav- ity of bodies, the periodical movement of the planets, etc. The term attribute is a word properly convertible with quality, for cA'cry quality is an attribute, and every at- Attribute. „ . i'-. i , • ^ tribute IS a quality ; but, in our language, cus- tom has introduced a certain distinction in their application. Attri- bute is considered as a word of loftier significance, and is, there- fore, conventionally limited to qualities of a higher application. Thus, for example, it would be felt as indecorous to speak of the qualities of God, and as ridiculous to talk of the attributes of matter. Property is correctly a synonym for peculiar quality ;^ but it is frequently used as coextensive with quality in Property. Accident. i < . t i • i general. Accident^ on the contrary, is an ab- breviated expression for accidental or contingent quality. Phcenomenon is the Greek word for that which ai)pears, and may therefore be translated by (qyyearance. There IS, however, a distinction to be noticed. In the first place, the employment of the Greek term shows that it is used in a strict and philosophical application. In the second i)lace, the English name is associated Avith a certain secondary or imijlied meaning, Avhich, in some degree, renders it inappropriate as a pre- cise and definite expression. For the terra appearance is used to denote not only tliat Avhieh reveals itself to our obserA^ation, as existent, but also to signify that which only seems to be, in contrast to that Avhich truly is. There is thus not merely a certain A'ague- ness in the Avord, but it even iuA^olves a kind of contradiction to the sense in Avhich it is used when employed for phoinomenon. In consequence of this, the term phjenomenon has been naturalized in our language, as a i:)hilosophical substitute for the term appearance. 1 In the older and Aristotelian sense of the the later Logicians, the term jiroperiy was les» term. See ro|)/>5. i. 5: "Xhiov h' iarXv % /xr] correctly used to denote a necessary quality, Sri\o7 ixfv rh ri ■ffv duat, ix6vcfi S^ inrdpx^^ whether peculiar or not. — Ed. Ka( ain-iKaTTqyopurai rod ■Kpdyfxaros. By LECTURE IX. EXPLICATION OF TERMS — RELATIVITY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. After giving a definition of Psycliology, or the Philosophy of Mijid, in which I endeavored to conii)rise a Kecapitulation. ■ c • ■, i • ,» variety oi exj)ressions, tlie ex])hination of which miglit smooth the way in our sul)se({uent progress, I was engaged, during my last Lecture, in illustrating the principle, that all our knowledge of mind and matter is merely relative. We know, and can know, lu^thing absolutely aiul in itself: all that we know is existence in certain special forms or modes, and these, likewise, only in so far as thev mav he an.ilo'^ous to our faculties. We mav .suppose existence to have a thousand modes; — but these thousand models are all to \is as zero, unless we possess faculties accommo- dated to their n)>|u-ehension. But Avere the number of our facul- ties coextensive with the modes of being, — had we, for eacli of these thousand modes, a se]iarate organ comjietent to make it known to us, — still would our whole knowledge be, as it is at present, only of the relative. Of existence, absolutely and in itself, ■we shotdfl then l)e as ignorant as we are now. We should stil.' ap]»rehend existence only in certain special modes, — only in cim- tain relations to our faculties of knowledge. Tjiese relative modes, whether bi'longing to tlie world without or to the world witliin, are, uiuler difterent ])oints of view and dif- ferent limitations, known under various names, as qualities^ p;*o/)er- //V.S-, essence^ accldtiits^ i>h)<'<-t. Of the signification and differences of these expressions, T stated onlv ^hat was ncces- .^ary in onler to alfoid a gi'neiai notion of their phih)sophical appli- cation. iSnbsta/tcc, (suhxtintthu) I noticed, is considered either in contrast to its accidents, as vi k jwr se .•ii(f»s/sfinN, or in connection with them, as iil qnoj Kultfittif iirrithntihiis. It, therefore, compre- 108 METAPHYSICS. Lect. IX. hends Loth the Greek terms ova-La and vTroKeifxevov, — ovaM beinc^ equivalent to substcuttla in the meaning of ens per se suhslstens; — vTTOKeLfievov to it, as id quod substat uccideiitlbus} Tlie term sf/bject is used only for substance in its second meaning, and thus corres- j)onds to xmoK£LiJi€vov ; its literal signification is, as its etymology expresses, that which lies, or is placed, under the phsenomena. So much for the terms s%d)stanc€ and subject, significant of unknown or absolute existence. I then said a few words on the differences of the A-arious terms expressive of known or relative existence, mode, niodification, state^ <[u• i\' <-. . ^ , one or other 01 three difterent ei-rors. Some ferent errors regard- ing Substance. liave denied the reality of any unknown ground of the known phaMiomena; and have maintained that niiiid and matter have no substantial existence, but are merely the two complements of two series of associated qualities. This ^xloctrine is, however, altogether futile. It belies the veracity of our primary beliefs ; it leaves unsatisfied the strongest necessities of our intellectual nature ; it admits as a fiict that the phamomena are connected, but allow^s ho cause explanatory of the fact of their connection. Others, again, have fallen into an opposite error. The}' have attempted to speculate concerning the nature of the unknown grounds of the phasnomena of mind and matter, ■^part from the phaeiiomena, and have, accordingly, transcended the legiti- mate sphere of philosophy. A third party have taken some one, or more, of the }>l:\Tenomena themselves as the basis or substratum of the others. Thus Descartes, at least as understood and followed by Mallebranche and others of his disciples, made thought or con- sciousness convertible with the substance of mind;- and Bishops Brown and Law, with Dr. Watts, constituted solidity and extension 1 'TTTOO-Toffis, Ikmc noted, by way of interpo- nificat id tjuod revfrn fst^ etiamsi est commu- tation, as of theological application. [On this nicatuin. 'Tiri^TOMris autein sen Persnua est point see Melanchthon, Erot. Dial. (Strigelii) subsistens, vivuni, individuum, iutelligens, p. 145, et sc:;. '• In philosophia, generaliter incoramunicabile, non sustentatum in alio." nomine Essentia utimur pro re per sese consi- Compare the relative annotatipn by Strigel- fJerata. sive sit in priedicaniento snbstanti:r, >""! ""*' Hocker, C/avix Phil. Arist. p. :3i)l. — sive sit accidens. At VTr6(rTa(ns significat Ed.^ rem .^tilsisieniem , qu;e opponitur accidentibus. - Principia, pars i. § 98,51--53. On this point Ecclesia vero cum qnodani discrimine his vo- see Stewart, Works, vol. ii. p. 473, note A. cabulis utitur. Nam vocabulum E.sjfnn'as sig- — Ed. Li.CT. IX. METAPHYSICS. 109 into tlic substance of body. This theory is, however, liable to all the objections which may be allei^ed against the first.' I defined Psycliology, the science conversant about the 2)/ue- nomena of the 7nind, or conscioHs-xahjecf, or self, p ana ion o ^j. ^^ T\\G former parts of the definition have terms — (continued.) ' . ' been explained; the terms mind, consclous-sKh- Ject, self, and ego, come now to be considered. These are all only expressions for the unknown basis of the mental i)liainomena, viewed, however, in different relations. Of these the word mind is the first. In regard to the etymology of this term,^ it is obscure and doubtful ; per- haps, mdeed, none oi the attemi)ts to trace it to its origin are successful. It seems to hold an analogy with the Latin mens, and both are ])robal)ly derived from the same common root. Tins root, which is lost in the European languages of Scytho- Indian origin, is probably preserved in the Sanscrit mena, to know or understmid. The Greek vov^, intelligence, is, in like manner, derived from a verb of precisely the same meaning (j/oeoj). The word mind is of a more limited signification than the term said. In the Greek philosophy, the term ^vyi]^ soul, com])rehends, besides the sensitive and rational princijile in man, the ])rinci])le of organic life, both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms; and, in Christian theology, it is likewise used, in contrast to nvevfjia or spirit, in a vaguer and more extensive signification. Since Descartes limited psychology to the domain of conscious- ness, the term mind has been rigidly employed for the self-knowing principle alone. Mind, therefore, is to be understood as the subject of the various internal j)ha'iiomena of M'hich we are conscious, or that subject of which consciousness is the general ])haMi()inenon. Consciousness is, in fact, to the mind what extension is to matter t>r body. Though both are ]th;t!nomena, yet both are essential (jualities; for we can neither conceive niii:d without consciousness, nor body without extension. ]\Iiiid can be de- Alind can 1)0 dclincil i- i i j • • ^y ,. • i i- . . lined onlv a iMStenon, — that is, only trom its only a posUnon. _^ •'_ ' manifestations. What it is in itself, that is, apart fiom its manifestations, — we, j)hilosuj)hicalIy, know nothing, and, accordingly, what Ave mean by mind is simply tlnif ir/ii.-U per- ceives, thinks, feels, wills^ dcsins, etc. ^lind, with us, is thus nearly coextensive with the Rational and Animal souls of Aris- totle; for the faculty of voluntary motion, which is a function of i Enryrlnpnilia BriUvinlrn, art. Mftiip/ii/sirs^ 2 On etynioloffv of mint/, otc. — soo Sclieid- pp. 615,646, (7tli ed.) [Cf. Dcscarteii, Principia Icr's Psyehotogif, p. .325. pars i. § 63, pars ii. ^ 4. — V.d.] XlO METAPHYSICS. Lect. IX the animal soul in the Peripatetic doctrine, ought not, as is gen- erally (lone, to be excluded from the phaenoraena of consciouness and mind. The definition of mind from its qualities is given by Aristotle ; it forms the second definition in his Treatise on the Soitl^ and after him, it is the one generally adopted by philosophers, and, among others, by Dr. Reid.^ That Reid, therefore, should have been j)raised for having thus defined the mind, shows only the ignorance of his encomiasts. He has no peculiar merit in this resj^ect at all. The next term to be considered is eo?isclons subject. And first, what is it to be conscious? Without anticipat- Conscious-Subject. . , ,. . , . ing the discussion relative to consciousness, as the fundamental function of intelligence, I may, at present, simply indicate to you what an act of consciousness denotes. This act is of the most elementary character ; it is the condition of all knowl- edge ; I cannot, therefore, define it to you ; but, as you are all familiar with the thing, it is easy to enable you to connect the ruling with the word. I know, — I desire, — I feel. What is it that is common to all these? Knowincj and desiring an^i feeling are not the same, and may be distinguished. But they all agree in one fundamental condition. Can I know, without knowing that I know? Can I desire, without knoicing that I desire? Can I feel, without knowing that I feel? This is impossible. Now this knowing that I know or desire or feel, — this common condition of self-knowledge, is pi'ecisely what is denominated Consciousness.^ So much at present for the adjective of conscious — now for the substantive, subject^ — conscious-suhject. Though consciousness be the condition of all internal phaenomena, still it is itself only a phaenomenon ; and, therefore, supposes a subject in which it in- heres; — that is, supposes sometliing that is conscious, — something that manifests itself as conscious. And, since consciousness com- prises within its sphere the whole phaenomena of mind, the ex- pression conscious-suhject is a brief, but comprehensive, definition of mind itself. I have already informed you of the general meaning of the word subject in its philosophical a])pJication, — viz. the unknown basis 1 De Anima, ii. 2. 'H ^vxv 5e tovto w Ta7s, kol tos Suyafi.ets airb rovTcoy 4irt- ^Hfjifi' KM ala^avofif^a koI Siacoou/xf&a yoovfxei/. In lib. ii. De Anima, p. 76, (Aid. irpwruis. Cf. Tliemistiiis. El Si XPV ^^yf'" Fol.) — Kd Tt fKaffTOV Tovruv, oiov rl rh voririKhv. ^ 2 Intellfctual Powew, Essay i. c. 2; Works, p. Ti rh airr^riTiKhv, irpSrepov eirinrKemfov, ri 229. " By tlie mind of a man, we understand rh voflu, Ka\ ri rh aladai'fff'iiat' irpSrepai that in liini wliicli tliinks, remembers, reasons. ■yap Kol (Ta(pf Why exchange a precise and proximate expression for a vague and abstract generality ? The question is pertinent, and merits a reply; for unless it can be shown that the word is necessary, its introduction cannot possibly be vindicated. Now, the utility of this expression is founded on two circumstances. The first, that it affords an adjective ; the second, that the terms subject and sub- jective have opposing relatives in the terms object and objective, >'0 that the two pairs of words together, enable us to designate the primary and most im])ortant analysis and antithesis of philosophy, in a more j)recise and emphatic manner than can be done by any other technical expressions. This will require some illustration. Subject, Ave have seen, is a term for that in which the pluenomeria revealed to our observation, inhere; — what the , ".^l"" ^. " •'*'''"^ schoolmen have designated the materia in oua. and Ohji'Ctive; their . _ , ~ -» origin and meaning. Limited to the mental pha}nomena, subject therefore, denotes the mind itself; and sub- jective, that which belongs to, or i)roceeds from, the thinking sul)- ject. Object, on the other haiul, is a term lur that al)out which the knowing subject is conversant, what the schoolmen have styled *,he ruatcriii cirm tpuon ; while objective moans that which belongs to, or proceeds from, the object known, ami not from the subject knowing; and th.us denotes what is real in opposition to what is ideal, — what exists in ii.it inc, in contrast to what exists merely in the thought of the individual. Now, the great jiroblem of i)hilosoi>hy is to analyze the contents of our acts of knowledge, or cognitions, — to distinguish what v elements are contributed by the knowing subject, what elements by the object known. There must, therefore, be terms ailej)lication of the word, (subject of predication), facili- tated, or occasioned this confusion. In using the terms, therefore, Ave think that an explanation, but no apology, is required. The dis- tinction is exi)ressed by no other terms ; and if these did not already enjo}'^ a prescrii)tive right as denizens of the language, it cannot be denied, that, as strictly analogical, they are well entitled to sue out their naturalization. We shall have frequent occasion to recur to this distinction, — • and it is eminently worthy of your attention. The last parallel expressions are the terms self and e "s ra- convertible. As the best pre])arative for a proi>- ted from I'lato. . ^ ^ ' ' ' er understanding of these terms, I shall trans- late to you a passage from the l^'irst Alciblades of Plato. ^ The in- terlocutors are Socrates and Alcil)iades. " Socr. Hold, now, with whom do you at present converse ? Is it not with me ? — Alcih. Yes. Socr. And I also w^ith you ? — Alcib. . Yes. Socr. It is Socrates then who speaks? — Alcib. Assuredly. Socr. And Alcibiades who listens? — Alcib. Yes. Socr. Is it not with language that Socrates s}*e.iks? — Alcib. What now? of course. Socr. To converse, and tu use language', are not these then the same? — Alcib. The very same. Socr. Hut ho who uses a thing, and the thing used, — are those not different ? — Alcib. What do you mean ? Socr. A, ciu'rier, — does he not use a cutting knife, and other in- struments ? — . Llcib. Yes. 1 P 129. The }H'iiuinene,«s, however, of this tranglatinn); Schleiermacher's IntroU PMlosnpky^ vol. ii. p. I(j4, (KiiRlish iler Or. Horn. Philofnpkit, vol. ii. p. 180. — E>. 15 114 METAPHYSICS. Lect. IX. Socr, And the man who uses the cutting knife, is he different from the instrument he uses ? — Alcib. Most certainly. iSocr. In like manner, the lyrist, is he not different from the lyre he plays on ? — Alcib. Undoubtedly. Socr. This, then, was what I asked you just now, — does not he who uses a thing seem to you always different from the thing used ? ■ — Alcib. Very different. Socr. But the currier, does he cut with his instruments alone, or also with his hands? — Alcib. Also with his hands. Soo: He then uses his hands ? — Alcib. Yes. Socr. And in his work he uses also his eyes ? — Alcib. Yes. Socr. We are agreed, then, that he who uses a thing, and the thing used, are different ? — Alcib. We are. Socr. The currier and lyrist are, therefore, different from the hands and the eyes, with which they work ? — Alcib. So it seems. Socr. Now, then, does not a man use his whole body? — Alcib. Unquestionably. Socr. But we are agreed that he who uses, and that which is used, are different? — Alcib. Yes. Socr. A man is, therefore, different fi-om his body ? — Alcib. So I think. Socr. What then is the man ? — Alcib. I cannot say. Socr. You can at least say that the man is that which uses the body ? — Alcib. True. Socr. Now, does anything use the body but the mind ? — Alrib. Nothing. Socr. The mind is, therefore, the man? — Alcib. The mind alone." To the same effect, Aristotle asserts that the mind contains the man, not the man the mind. ^ " Thou art the soul," says Hierocles, " but the body is thine." ^ So Cicero — " Mens cuj usque is est quis- que, non ea figura qu?e digito demonstrari potest ; " ' and Macrobius — " Ergo qui videtur, non ipse verus homo est, sed verus ille est, a quo regitur quod videtur." * No one has, however, more beautifully ex- Arbuthnot. t i • i i » i i r j^resseu this trutli than Arbuthnot."' " What am I, Avhence produced, and for what end? Whence drew I being, to what period tend ? 1 That the mind is t/ie man, is maintained 3 Somnium Scipionis, § 8. — Ed. by Aristotle in several phices. Cf. Kth. Nic. ^ Macrobius, In Somnium Scipionis, lib. iL ix. 8; X. 7; but these do not contain tlie ex- g 12. — V.u. act words of the text. — Ed , „ ,, ,^ „ i-v j 1 , ^ ,. .• „ . „ , ^ Know thyself See Dodsley's CoWecJtow, 2 In Aurea Pythaeoreorum Carmina, 26: 2u , . ,on i^ ^ T" I '. \*^ - X v-^ vol.1 p 180.- Ei>. yap fl T] v/uxT) TO Of o-oijuo rroc. — Kd. Lect. iX. METAPHYSICS. 115 Am I th' abandon'd orphan of blind chance, Dropp'd hy wild atoms in disordered dance? Or, from an endless chain of causes wrouj^ht, And of untliinkin;;:; substance, born with thought. Am I but what I seem, mere flesh and blood, A branching channel with a mazj' flood ? The purple stream that throuj^h my vessels glides. Dull and unconscious flows, like common tides, The pipes, throiiLjh whicli the circling juices stray, Are not that thinking I, no more than they : This frame, compacted with transcendent skill, Of moving joints, obedient to my will; Nursed from the fruitful ^Icbc, like yonder tree. Waxes and wastes, — I call it mine, not me. New matter still the mould'ring mass sustains; The mansion chang'd, the tenant still remains; And,' from the fleeting stream, repair'd by food. Distinct, as is the swimmer from the flood." But let us come to a closer determination of the point; let us ap- peal to our experience. " I turn my attention The Self or Ego in ^^ being, and find that I have organs, and lelation to bodilv or- , t , i i -» r i t • i i gaus, and thoughts. that I have thoughts. My body is the comple- ment of my organs ; am I then my body, or any part of my body? This I cannot be. Tlic matter of my body, in all its points, is in a perpetual flux, in a perpetual process of renewal. I, — / do not pass away, I am not renewed. None probably of the molecules which constituted my organs some years ago, form any part of the material system which I now call mine. It has been made up anew; l»ut I am still what I was of old. These organs may be mutilated ; one, two, or any number of them may be re- moved ; but not the less do I continue to be Avhat I was, one .iiid entire. It is even not impossible to conceive me existing, depr'vcd of every organ, — I therefore, who have the.>edient, — throwing altogether out of account the possibility that what is at first assumed as hypothetical, may subsequently be proved true. An hypothesis is allowable only under certain conditions. Of these the first is, — tliat the phainomenon to TKo conditions of ,^g explained, sliould b(> ascertained actuallv to legitimate livpotliesis. . i i . The first. ' cxist. It would, for exam}»le, be absurd to pro- pose an hypothesis to account for the ]iossil)ility of apparitions, until it be jiroved that ghosts do actually appear. This j)rccept, to establish your fact before you attempt to conject' 118 METAPHYSICS. Lect. X nre its cause, may, perhaps, seem to yoix too elementary to be worth the statement. But a longer experience will convince you of the contrary. That the enunciation of the rule is not only not superfluous, but even highly requisite as an admonition, is shown by great and numerous examples of its violation in the history of science ; and, as Cullen has truly observed, there are more false facts current in the world than false hypotheses to explain them. There is, in truth, nothing which men seem to admit so lightly as an asserted fact. Of this I might adduce to you a host of mem- orable examples. 1 shall content myself with one small but sig- nificant illustration. Charles II., soon after the incorporation of the Koyal Society, which was established under his patronage, sent to request of that learned body an explanation of the following phimnomenon. When a live fish is thrown into a basin of water, the basin, water, and fish do not weigh more than the basin and water before the fish is thrown in ; whereas, Avhen a dead fish is employed, the weight of the whole is exactly equal to the added Aveights of the basin, the Avater, and the fish. Much learned discussion ensued regarding this curious fact, and several elaborate papers, propounding various hypotheses in explanation, were read on the occasion. At length a member, who was better versed in Anstotle than his associates, recollected that the philosopher had laid it down, as a general rule of philosophizing, to consider the an sit of a fact, before j^roceeding to investigate the cur sit/ and he ventured to insinuate to his col- leagues, that, though the authority of the Stagirite was Avith them, — the disciples of Bacon, — of small account, it might possibly not be altogether inexpedient to follow his advice on the present occa- sion ; seeing that it did nut, in fact, seem at variance with common sense, and that none of the hypotheses proposed were admitted to be altogether satisfactory. After much angry discussion, some members asserting the fact to be in itself notorious, and others declaring that to doubt of its reality was an insult to his majesty, and tantamount to a constructive act of treason, the experiment Avas made, — Avhen lo ! to the confusion of the wise men of Gotham, — the name by Avhich the Society Avas then popidarly known, — it Avas found that the weight Avas identical, Avhether a dead or a living fish Avei'e used. This is only a j>ast and ]ietty illustration. It would be easy to adduce extensive hy)>otheses, very generally accredited, even at the present hour, Avhich are, however, nothing l>etter than assump- tions founded on, or ex])lanatory of, ijhaenomena Avhich do not really exist in nature. Lect. X. M K T A F H Y S I C S . 119 The second condition of a pormissiblo hypothesis is, — that the jtluenoincnon cannot be explained otherwise The second. i ■ t ^ t i- i than l)y an liypotliesis. It wouhl, tor example, Jia\c been absunl, even before the discoveries of Franklin, to account for the pha^nonienon of lightning by the liypotliesis of supernatural agency. These two conditions, of the reality of the phaenonienon, and the necessity of an hypothesis lor its (.'xplana tion, being iultillcd, an hypothesis is allowable.^ But the necessity of some hypothesis being conceded, how are we to discriminate between a good and a bad. Criteria of tiK. ex- _ .^ pi-.^i,.,!,!^. .^^^^\ .,„ improbable hypothesis? Cellence of :m IivikHIi- . r- i i • ^. llie comparative excellence ot an livpotliesis requires, in the first place, that it involve noth- ing contradictory, either internally or externally, — that is, either betAveeii ihe ))arts of wliieh it is composed, or between these and any established truths. Thus, the Ptolemaic liy])othesis of the heavenly revolutions became worthless, from the moment that it "was contradicteable of dissolving. The Huttonian hypothesis, on the contrary, is so far preferable, that it a.ssumes no eftect to have been jtioduced by any agent, which that agent is not kudwn to be caj>able of jiro- ducing. In the second ]»lace, an hypothesis is probable in ])r()por- tion as the plia'iiomenon in question can be by it more completely explained. Thus, the Copernican hypothesis is more jirobable than the Tychonic and semi-Tychonic, inasmuch as it enables us to explain a greater number of pluenomena. In the third place, an hypothesis is prol>able, in ]>ro])ortioii as it is independent of all sid>sidiaiy hypotheses. In this respect, again, the Copernican liy- potliesis is moie ))robable than the Tychonic. For, though both pave all the phauiomena, the Copernican does this by one j)rincipal ;issumj)tioii ; whereas the Tychonic is obliged to call in the aid of ficveral subordinate sujipositions, to render the ]»rincipal assumption iivailable. So much for hi/pot/n sin. I have dwelt longei' on hypothesis than perha))s was necessary; ior you must recollect tli.it tliese ti-rms ai-e, at present, considered only in order to enable you to uiulerstand their signification when casually employed. We shall ]irol)ably, in a subsequent j)art of ihe Course, have occasion to treat of tlu-m expressly, and Avith 1 [On the conditions of legitimate liyixitli- irn E/rrtivn, Diss. I'ncnm. art 3. toin. i pi. «8is comiiar*' .John Cliristophcr Sturm. Pliy^- 28. | 120 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. X the requisite details. I sliall, tlierefore, be move concise in treating of tlie cognate expression, — theory. Tliis wonl is employed by English writers, in a very loose and improper sense. It is with them usually convertible with hyj)othcsis, and hypothesis is eonx- nionly used as another term for conjecture. Dr. Reid, indeed,, expressly does this; he identifies the two words, and ex])lains them as philosophical conjectures, as you may see in his P'irst Essay on the Intellectual Poioers, (Chapter III.)' This is, however, wrong; wrong, in relation to the original em])loyraent of the terms by the ancient ])hilosophers; and wrong, in relation to their employment by the philosophers of the modei'u nations. The tenns theory and theoretical are ])roperly used in ojjposition to the terms practice and practical; in this Theory; Practice. i • i sense they were exclusively employed by the ancients; and in this sense they are almost exclusively employed by the continental philosophers. Practice is the exercise of an art, or the application of a science, in life, which application is itself an art, for it is not every one who is able to ap])ly all he knows; there being required, over and above knowledge, a certain dexterity and skill. Theory, on the eonti'ary, is mere knowledge or science. There is a distinction, but no opposition, between theory and practice; each to a certain extent supposes the otliei. On the one hand, theory is dependent on practice; ])racti('e must have preceded theory; for theory being only a generalization of the principles on which practice proceeds, these must originally have been taken out of, or abstracted from, practice. On the other hand, this is true only to a certain extent ; for there is no jjraetice without a theory. The man of practice must have always known something, however little, of what he did, of what he intended to do, and of the means by which his intention was to be carried into effect. He was, therefore, not wholly ignorant of the princi- j)les of his procedure; he was a limited, he was, in some degree,, an unconscious, theorist. As he ]n-oceeded, however, in his prac- tice, and refiected on his performance, his theory acquired greater clearness and extension, so that he became at last distinctly con- scious of what he did, and could give, to himself and others, an account of his proceted. Active and passive poAver are in Greek styled 8vva/xi? TroLTjriKrj, and StW/Ai? naSi]- TiKT)], in J^aiin, 2>otenHa activa, and j^otentia passlva? Powe)\ thei'efore, is a word which we may use, both in an active, and in a passive, signification, and, in psychology, we may apply it both to the active faculties, and to the passive capacities, of mind. l^liis leads to the meaning of the terms faculties^ and capadtles. 'Fariiltii ( tac>fl((is) is derived from the obsolete Faculty. t • . , , • /• c ■ -,■ Latiii /'fct/f, the more ancient lorm oi fartlis, fi-om which again facilitas is formed. It is properly limited to active power, and, therefore, is abusively applied to the mere pas- sive affections of mind. Vapacitg {capacitas) on the other hand, is more properly limited to these. Its primary signification, which is (,'apacity. . i . o ^ literally room for, as well as its emi)loyment, favors this ; although it cannot be denied, that there are examples of its usage in an active sense. Leibnitz, as fiir as I know, was the first who limited its psychological application to the passivities of miixl. In' his famous N^otweaux Essais siir t Kn ten dement ILi- inalii, a work written in refutation of Locke's Essag on the same suV)ject, he observes: " We may say that power (puissance), in ge- neral, is the possibility of change. Now the change, or the act of this ]iossibility, being action in one subject and passion in another, tluMT will be two jjowers [deux puissances,) the one passirr, the other actirr. The active may be cnUcd fant/fg, and perhai)s the passive might be called rajxiritg, or receptivity. It is true that the ;icti\ f i)o\ver is sometimes taken in ;i higher sense, Avhen, over and above the simjde tiuulty, there is also a tendency, a jusi/s \ and it is thus that I Ii;i\<' used it in mv ilvnamical considerations. We i Sve Metap>i. iv. (v.) 12; viii (ix.) 1. — Kd. those for ))iissivc power by terniiniitiDiis in •-•This distinction is, indee.l, established in "^"^^ '^'^^"^ ^oivtikov, that uliich can make; the Greek; lan;,'uape itself. That toiiKne has. toitjtcJv, that which can he made; KiinrriK6v. I'.nionf? its otlier marvellous i>erfections. two •'""^ which can move; KiyrirU, that which si'ts of potential adjectives, tlie one for nr/iiv, can Ik' moved; and so iriJOKTixdi and irpoK- tlie other ioT jumsivf power. Those for active T^f, ala^riKii and oua^rSi, vorfTiKos and power are denoted by terminations in tiko'j, i'otjtoi, o(«o5o/iT)rtN'($r and oikoSo^tjtJj, etc. 124 METAPHYSICS. Lect. X might give to it in this meaning the special name of forced ' ' may notice that Roid seems to have attributed no otlier meaning to tlte term power than that of force. Power, tiien, is active and jjassive ; foculty is active power, — cajjacity is passive power. The two terms next in order, are dispositio^i, in Greek, Sia^co-is; and habit, in Greek, €^is. I take these t( gether Disposition, Habit. . •, i t. i as they are snnilar, yet not the same. i>oth are tendencies to action ; hut they differ in this, that disposition ])roperly denotes a natural tendency, habit an acquired tendency. Aristotle distinguishes them by anotlicr difference. " Habit (e^t?) is discrim- inated from disposition (Sta^ccns) in this, that the latter is easily movable, the fomier of longer duration, and more difficult to be moved." - I may notice that habit is formed by the frequent repeti- tion of the same action oi- passion, and that this repetition is called consuetude, or custom. The latter terms, which properly signify the cause, are not nnfrequently abusively employed for habit, their effect. I may likewise observe that the terms jioirrr, facidty, capacityy are more appropriately applied to natural, than to acquired, capa- bilities, and are thus inapplicable to mere habits. I say mere habits, for where habit is superinduced upon a natural capability, both terms may be used. Thus we can say both the faculty of abstrac- tion, and the habit of abstraction, — the capacity of suffering, and the habit of suffering; but still the meanings are not identical. The last series of cognate terms are act, operation, energy. They are all mutually convertible, as all denoting the Act, Operation, En- pi-ggent exertiou or exercise of a power, a fiic- ulty, or a habit. I must here explain to you the famous distinction of actual and potential existence ; for, by this distinction, act, operation, energy, are contra- rotential and AC- ^Hseriminatcd from ])ower, flicultv, capacitv, dis- ual Existence. . . 11,. n-,, • ,. . * . , t position, and habit, iliis (hstmction, when di- vested of certain subordinate subtleties of no great consequence, is manifest and simple. Potential existence means merely that the thing may be at some time ; actual existence, that it now is} Thus, the mathematician, when asleep or playing at cards, does not exer- cise his skill ; his geometrical knoNvledge is all latent, but he is still a mathematician, — ])()tentially. 1 Nouveaiix EnsnU, liv. ii. cli. 21. § 1. — Ed. learned note of Trendelenburg on Arist. de 2 Categ. eh. 8. — Ed. Anima, ii. 1. — Ed. 3 This distinction is well illustrated in the Leot. X. METAPHYSICS. 125 'Ut quiimvis tacit Hermoj^cnes, cantor tainen atqiic Optiiims est modulator; — ut Alfenus vafer, oinni Abjccto instrumento artis, clausaquc tabema, Sutor crat." ' Herrnogenes, says Horace, was a singer, even when silent ; how ? — a singer, not in acfn but in posse. So Alfenus was a cobbler, even when not at Avork ; that is, he was a QohhXcY potential ; where- as, when bijsy in liis booth, he was a cobbler actind. In like manner, my sense of sight potentially exists, though niy eyelids are closed ; but when I open them, it exists actually. Now, power^ faculty, capacity, disposition, habit, are all diiferent expres- sions for potential or possible existence ; act, operation, energy, for actual or present existence. Thus the power of imagination ex- presses the unexerted capability of imagining ; the act of imagina- tion denotes that power elicited into immediate, — into present ex- istence. The different synonyms for potential existence, are exist- ence Iv 8vvdfji€i, in potentia, in jyosse, in porrer / for actual existence, existence Iv ivcpyeia, or iv ivriXix^Lo., in actu, in esse, in, act, in oj)era- tioii, in energy. The term energy is precisely the Greek term for act of operation; but it has vulgarly obtained the meaning of forcible activity. - The word fanctio, in Latin, simply expresses performance or ojieration ; functio niuneris is the exertion of an Function. ' . i • i i> • ^ energy ot some determmate kind. Jiut with us the word function has come to be employed in the sense of munKs alone, and means not the exercise, but the specific character, of a ] tower. Thus the function of a clergyman docs not mean with us the performance of his duties, but the ])eculiarity of those duties tliemselves. The function of nutrition does not mean the opera- tion of that animal ])Ower, but its discriminate character. So much by way of preliminary explanation of the ])sychologica] terms in most general and frequent use. Others, likewise, I shall, Ml the secpiel, have occasion to elucidate; but these m.iy, I think, more appropriately be dealt with as they happen to occur. 1 Horace, .SVir i. 3, 129. — Ei>. thoiicrli not actually cxcrci^iiif:, he is a 8iii;rcr - Kut thiMT is anutlicr relation of potcnti- in tirtii, in relation to liinisclf, bclbro In- liml ality and actuality which I may notice, — acquired the accomplishment. This afford.* llermoffenes, Alfenus, before, and after, ac- the distinction taken by Aristotle of first and "a, lib ii c. — Ed.) obtained the habit and power of singin;;. LECTURE XI. OUTLINE OF DISTRIBUTION OF MENTAL PHtENOMENA CONSCIOUSNESS, — ITS SPECIAL CONDITIONS. I NOW proceed to the consideration of the important subject, — • the Distribution of the Mental Phaenomena into Distribution of the . i • • . i i t t , , , their pnmary or most e;eneral classes. In regrard mental phenomena. ... to the distribution of the mental ])haenomena, I shall not at present attempt to give any history or criticism of the various classifications which have been proposed by different philo- sophers. These classifications are so numerous, and so contra- dictory, that, in the present stage of your knowledge, such a"history would only fatigue the memory, without informing the understand- ing; for you cannot be expected to be as yet able to comjirehond, at least many of the reasons which may be alleged for, or against, the different distributions of the human faculties. I shall, therefore, at once proceed to state the classification of these, which I have adopted as the best. In taking a comprehensive survey of the mental phaenomena, these are all seen to comprise one essential ele- Consciousness,— tiie me*^*, or to be possible only under one necessary one essential element t^. rnt • i , t,- • /-^ .^, , , , condition. 1 Ins element or condition is Con- or the mental pheno- mena, sciousness, or the knowledge that I, — that tlie Ego exists, in some determinate state. In this knowledge they appear, or are realized as pha^nomena, and with this knowledge they likewise disappear, or have no longer a pluenomenal existence ; so that consciousness may be compared to an internal light, by means of which, and which alone, what passes in the mind is rendered visible. Consciousness is simple, — is not coin])Osed of ])arts, either similar or dissimilar. It always resembles itself, differ- ing only in the degrees of its intensity ; thus, there are not various kinds of consciousness, although there are various kinds of mental modes, or states, of which we are conscious. Whatever division, therefore, of the mental phaenomena may be adopted, all its mem- bers must be within consciousness itself, which must be viewed as t Lect. XI. METAPHYSICS. 127 comprehensive of the "vvholc phaenomena to be divided ; far less should we reduce it, as a special phenomenon, to a particular class. Let consciousness, therefore, remain one and indivisible, compre- hending all the modifications, — all the phainomena, of the thinking subject. But taking, again, a survey of the mental modifications, or phte- nomena, of which we are conscious, — these are Three grand classes seen to divide themselves into THREE great of mental phajnom- t i i^. i ^i >7 i ^11^ classes. In the hrst place, there are the pha*- nomena of Knowledge; in the second place, there are the phaenomena of Feeling, or the phaenomena of Pk;i- sure and Pain; and. in the tlnrd plnce, there arc the phsenomena of Will and Desire.^ Let me illustrate this by an example, I see a ]»icture. Xow, first of all, — I am conscious of perceiving a certain complement of colors and figures-, — I recognize what the object is. Tiiis is t!ie phajuomenon of Cognition or Knowledge. But this is not the only i)ha3nomenon of which I may be here conscious. I may expe- rience certain affections in the contemplation of this object. If tlie ])icture be a masterpiece, the gratification will be unalloyed ; but if it be an unequal ])roduction, I shall be conscious, ]ierhaps, of enjoy- ment, but of enjoyment alloyed with dissatisfictiou. This is the phajnomenon of Feeling, — or of Pleasure and Pain. But these two phaenomena do not yet exhaust all of which I may be conscious on the occasion. I may desire to see the picture long, — to see it often, — to make it my own, and, perh:ii)s, I may will, resolve, or determine so to do. This is the complex phaenomenou of Will and Desire. The P^nglish language, unfortunately, does not afford us terms com])etent to express and discriminate, with Their nomenclature. even tolerable clearness and precision, these classes of ])hamomena. Li rcgaril to tlu' first, inleasure and pain, and yet this Avord is ambiguous. For it is not only employed to denote what we are conscious of as agree- able or disagreeable in oxn- mental states, but it is likewise used as a 1 Compare Stewart's Works, voi. i.. Advertisement by Editor. — Ed. 128 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XX synonym for the sense of toucli,^ It is, however, principally in I'elatiou to the third class that the deficiency is manifested. In English, xmfortunately, we have no term capable of adequately expressing wh.at is common both to will and desire ; that is, the nisiis or conatti.'t, — the tendency towards the realization of their end. By will is meant a free and deliberate, by desire a blind and fatal, tendency to act.* Now, to express, I say, the tendency to overt action, — the quality in which desire and will are equally contained, — Ave possess no English term to which an exception of more or less cogency may not be taken. Were we to say the phae- nomena of tendency/, the phrase would be vague ; and the same is true of the phenomena of doing. Again, the term pha?nomena of iippetency is objectionable, because, (to say nothing of the unfa- miliarity of the expression,) cqyi^etency, though jjerhaps etymologi- cally unexceptionable, has both in Latin and English a meaning almost synonymous with desire. Like the Latin appctadla^ the Greek ope^ts is equally ill-balanced, for, though used by i)hilosophers to comprehend both will and desire, it more familiarly suggests the latter, and we need not, therefore, be solicitous, with Mr. Harris and Lord Monboddo. to naturalize in English the term orectic^ Again, the phrase phasnomena of activity would be even worse ; every })ossible objection can be inade to the term active j^oivers, bv which the philosophers o? this country have designated the orectic facultiet^ of the Aristotelians. For you will observe, that all facul- ties are equally active ; and it is not the overt performance, but the tendency towards it, for whicli we are in quest of an expression. The German is the only language I am acquainted with which is able to sui)ply the term of which philosophy is in Avant. The ex- pression Ihstrehungs Vermoyen., which is most nearly, though awk- wardly and inadequately, translated by striving faculties, — faculties of effort or endeavor, — is now generally employed, in the philoso- phy of Germany, as the genus comprehending desire and Avill. Per- haps the phrase,phoenomena of exertion,!?,, upon the Avhole, the best expression to denote the manifestations, and exertive faculties, the best expression to denote tlie faculties of Avill and desire. HJxero, in Latin, means litei-ally to put forth, — and, Avith us, exertion and exertive are the only endurable woi-ds that I can find Avhich a]>proxi- mate, though distantly, to the strength and precision of the German 1 [Brown uses feeling for consciousness. — 2 Cf. Aristotle, Rhet. i. 10: ^ov\r)ffii, fiera Oral Inierp.]; e. g. Philosophy 0/ the Human y^iyo^, ^pf|,j iiyaSrov, &\oyoi. S' opf^tis, Minrl, Lecture xi. " The mind is susceijtible 1 \ \ > rv / ,, of a variety of feelings, every new leelni" be- \, _ , ,. , i. -i . i ., c- 1 ,-!• :t !^ee Lord Alonbod(\o's Ancient Metaphysics, me a change or its state.' Second edition, , , .. , . . . , . „r»i 1' book 11. chaps, vn. IX — Ld. vol. 1. p. 222. — Ld. '^ Lect. XI. METAPHYSICS. 129 expression. I shall, hoAVOver, occasionally employ likewise the term appttencAj^ in the rigorous signification I have mentioned, — as a genns comprehending under it botli desires and volitions.^ This division of the i)]iaenomena of mind into the three great classes of the Cognitive faculties, — the Feel- By whom ti.i.s ti.ree- j^^^^^^^ ^^. c-jpycities of Pleasure and Pain, — and fold distribution first "^ _, . ^ • -n t i jjj^jg the Kxertive or Conative Powers, — i flo not propose as original. It was first promulgated by Kant ; ' and the felicity of the distribution was so a[)))arent, that it has now been long all but universally adopted in (Tcrmany by the ])hil(>sopl»ers of every school ; and, what is curious, the only phi- losopher of any eminence by whom it has been assailed, — indeed, the only philosoplier of any reputation by wlioin it has been, in that country, rejected, is not an opponent of the Kantian philosophy, but one of its most zealous champions,'^ To the psychologists of this country, it is apparently wholly unknown. They still adhere to the old scholastic division into pOM'ers of the Understanding and j)Owers of the Will ; or, as it is otherwise expressed, into Intellectual and Active powers,* By its author, the Kantian classification has received no illustra- tion ; and by other German philosophers, it has Objection to the class- .ipp^i.^^tK. {,eeii viewed as too manifest to re- ificatiou obviated. ^ ^ -vt t • i • quire any. Nor do I tlunk it needs much ; though a few words in explanation may not be inexpedient. An objection to the arrangement may, perl)aps, be taken on the ground that the tlirce classes are not coordinate. It is evident that every mental pluenomenon is either an act of knowlend everv Lkct. XI. METAPHYSICS. 135 reliition supposes two terras. Thus, in the relation in question, there is, on the one liand, a subject of knowledge, — that is, tlie knowing mind, — and on the other, there is an object of knowledge, — that is, the thing known; and the knowledge itself is the rela- tion between these two terms. Now, thougli each term of a rela- tion necessarily su|»poses the other, nevertheless one of these terms may be to us the more interesting, and we may consider that term as the principal, and view the other only as subordinate and correl- ative. Now, this is the case in the i)resent instance. In an act of knowledge, my attention may be princii)ally attracted either to the object known, or to myself as the subject knowing ; and, in the latter case, although no new element be added to the act, the con- dition involved in it, — Tknoir that I kuoic, — becomes the jirimary and prominent matter of consideration. And when, as in the j^hi- iosophy of niinil, the act of knowledge comes to be specially consid- ered in relatioii to the knowing subject, it is, at last, in the progress of the science, found convenient, if not absolutely necessary, to )»ossess a scientific word in which this point of view should be per- manentlv and distinctivelv emliodied. But, as the want of a tech- nical and appro]iriate expression could be exj)erienced only aftet ])sycho!ogical abstraction had acquired a certain stability and impor- tance, it is evident that the appropriation of such an expression could not, in any language, be of very early date. And this is shown by the history of the synonymous terms for consciousness in the different languages, — a history whi«'h. History <)1' till' term ,, , • •^^ n ^ i.- i • . tliouiju curious, you will nna noticed in no conscjousness. ; _ ■■ ]tublication whatCAer. The employment of the word coiisch iithi, of which our term consciousness is a translation, is, in its j)sychological signification, not older than the ])hilosophy of Descartes, Previously to him, this word was used almost exclu- sively in the ethical sense, expressed by our term conscience, and in the striking and apparently appropriate dictum of St. Augustin, — "certissima scientia et clainante conscientia"' — Itc use b\' St. Au- 1 • I 11 ^ I- ^.i i i i which vou mav nnd so ireiiuentlv ])arade(l bv the continental jihilosophers, when illustrating the certainty of consciousness; in that quotation, the term is, by its author, a]i])lii'd only in its moral or religious signification. Besides the moral application, the wor. Anim. ii. 2. I'he pns>a;.'<' referred to is proba- •' D' Anivia, iii. 2 —Ed. blv T/iewt.. p. V.yi: 'ASwaTOf . .*. h oiV^o- •• De Somno, c. 2. § 4. The passage in Hm vfTai y(, fTtpoi' T, uf aiffi^avtrai, o'ir}^rjvai Pmhlenif, which may perhaps liave the same (Ivai. KcA h oiVdai/eToi, wu ti h>, oiV^ai-fTof. ""aninir. tb.,u^th it admits of a different in- This passape, liowever, is not exiictlr in i. • I'l''""'""- '^ i"'''' x' ?*?■ X(.>ptadft(raii po'Mt -En affr^(T«s 5iai/oiay Kttdairtp d«'Oi'i.';'^"* ■'>"-. p 01 — Kl> 18 138 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XI. (rvvei8r](TL<; manifestly employed in the sense of consciousness. This, however, is a corrnpt reading; and the authority of the best man- uscripts and of the best critics shows that o-i;V8e- Terms tantamount to ^^^ jg ^jie true lection.^ The Greek Platonists consciousness adopted ia-^.i- • iti h ■, ty the later Platonists ''^"^^ Aristotelians, in general, did not allow that and Aristotelians. the recognition that we know, that we feel, that ^\-e desire, etc., was the act of any special faculty, but the general attribute of intellect ; and the j)ower of reflecting, of turning back ujwn itself, was justly viewed as the dis- tinctive quality of intelligence. It was, however, necessary to pos- sess some single term expressive of this intellectual retortion, — of this itTLo-Tpo^-q TTpos lavTov, and the term o-Di^ato-^r^o-t? was adopted. This I find employed particularly by Proclus, Plotinus and Simpli- cius.^ The term awetST/o-t?, the one equivalent to the vonscientia of the Latins, remained like cotiscientia itself, long exclusively applied to denote conscience or the moral faculty; and it is only in Greek writers who, as Eugenius of Bulgaria, have fiourished since the time of Descartes and Leibnitz, that o-vi/ciSr^o-t? has, 'ike the conscientia of the Latins, been employed in the psychological meaning of consciousness." I may notice that the word o-uvcTriyj/wo-is, ill the sense of consciousness, is also to be occasionally met with in the \iter authors on philosophy in the Greek tongue. The ex- pression o-waicr^T^o-is, which properly denotes the self-recognition of sense and feeling, was, however, extended to mark consciousness ^*'' in general. Some of the Aristotelians, how- ( ertain of ihe Arii^- evcr, like Certain philosophers in this country, toteiians attributed attributed this recognition to a special laculty. the recof^iiition ol i t i i sense and feeling to a ^^ ^^esc 1 have been able to discover only special faculty. three : Philopoiius, in his commentary on Aris- totle's treatise Of the /Soul;* Michael Ephesius, ill his commentary on Aristotle's treatise of Memory and Remin- 1 The correction ai)v%iais is made by Men- Pyih. Carni. 41, p. 213, ed. 1654. Sextus Em ige on the authority of Suidas, v. bpni]. piricus, Ado. Math. ix. 68 (p. 407, Bekker). Kuster, on the other hand, proposes, on the Michael Ephesius, In Arist. dt Memoria, p. authority of Laerfius. to read (TweiSr)(ns 134. Plutarch. De Profectibiis in Virtute, c. 1, for ffwSctrts in Suidas. —Ed. 3. Plotinus, £n»i. iii. lib. 4, b. 4. Siraplicius, ., rT>i„4i„. „ 7- i-v ••■ „ „ , In Arist. Categ. p. SS, b.ed.l5!jl. — Ed. 2 [Plotmus, Enn. v. hb. in. c. 2. Pioclus, „ .,_ 7 I, ^ Lw. Theol C.39. Simplicius, In Epic. EnMr. ' ^'^ ^^' ^"^'f "^ Eugenu.s. p. 113. He p. 28, Heins.-(p. 49, Schweigh.)] In the ^''" "'"' cns m the same sense. two finst of these passages, avuaia^ffis ap- ^'''-' "*''^ "'^''"' "^''•' '^^' '" ^"Hkv eV iraAai- pears to be used merely in its etymological <""'■* ""^ vtwripuv ut to return from our historical digression. We may lay it down as the most general characteristic of con- T}ie most general sciousucss, that it is the recognition by the characteristic of con- thinking Subject of its own acts or affections. The special coudi- ^« *""'»" ^lu're is 110 difficulty and no dispute, tious of consciousness. lu tliis all philosophers are agreed. The more arduous task remains of determining the sj)ecia] conditions of consciousness. Of these, likewise, some are almost too palpable to admit of controversy. Before proceeding to those in regard to which there is any doubt or difficulty, it will be proper, in the first place, to state and dispose of suc'i 1. Those generally determinations as are too palpable to be called *'''"''*''' in question. Of these admitted limitations, the C'onscioiisness ini- , . , . • i r' r plies 1, actual knowi- ^^'^^ ^s, that consciousness is an actual :lnd not edge. a })otential knowledge.'' Thus a man is said to know, — /. <. is able to know, that 7 -|- 9 are = H), though that equation be not, at the nu)ment, the object of his thought ; V)ut we cannot say thai he is conscious of this truth uuiiss while actually ])resent to his mind. The second limitation is. tliat consciousness is an immediate, not a iiicdiati' knowledge. We are said, for exam- i)le, to know a past occurrence wlien we repre- edpe. ' *, , , ' sent it to the mind in an act of memory. >> e know the mental representation, and this we do immediately and 1 Rather in the Commeiitarv on the .YiVom'j- npoffoxJ? 5t icrriKCL^'^v irpoa-fxofiff rois ry/cnn RAjm, usuall> attributed to Enstratiiis, tpyoii oh irpaTrotxfv Ka\ rois \6yots oh p. \W, t>. It is not mentioned in tlie Com- \fyou(v. En. mentary on the D'. Memoria. — El>. 2 [F'sellus, !><• Omtii/firiii Dortrina, ^ Hi:] " tonijiare Ifeids Coll. Works, p. 810 —ED 140 METAPHYSICS. LMct. XL in itself, ami are also said to know the past occurrence, as medi- ately knoAving it through the mental modification which represents it. Now, we are conscious of the representation as immediately known, but we cannot be said to be conscious of the thing repre- sented, which, if known, is only known througli its representation. If, therefore, mediate knowledge be in propriety a knowledge, con- sciousness is not coextensive with knowledge. This is, however, a problem we are hereafter specially to considei-. I may here also observe, that, wliile all philosophers agree in making consciousness an immediate knowledge, some, as Reid and Stewart, do not admit that all immedi:ite knowledge is consciousness. They hold that we have an immediate knowledge of external objects, but they hold that these objects are beyond the sphere of consciousness.^ This is an opinion we are, likewise, soon to canvass. The third condition of consciousness, which may be held as uni- versally admitted, is, that it supposes a contrast, . Contrast. Di>- — a discrimination ; for We can be conscious onlv crimination of one ob- ject from another. masmucli as Ave are conscious of something; and we are conscious of something only inasmuch as we are conscious of what that something is, — that is, distinguish it from what it is not. This discrimination is of different kinds and degrees. In the first place, there is the contrast between the two grand opposites, self and not-self, — ego and non-ego, This discrimination _ ^jj^ j .^j^^:^ matter ; (the contrast of subject of various kinds and , , . . , __... . jg„i.ggg and object is more general.) He are conscious of self only in and by its contradistinction from not-self; and are conscious of not-self only in and by its contra- distinction from self In the second place, there is the discrimina- tion of the states or modifications of the internal subject or self from each other. We are conscious of one mental state only as Ave contradistinguish it from another; where two, three, or more such states are confounded, Ave are conscious of them as one ; and were Ave to note no diflTcrence in our mental modifications, Ave might be said to be absohxtely unconscious. Hobbes lias truly said,. •'Idem semper sentire, et non sentire, ad idem recidunt."^ In the third place, there is the distinction between the parts and qualities of the outer AA'orld. We are conscious of an external object only as Ave are conscious of it as distinct from others, — where several 1 See Reid, InteUeclual Powers, Essay vi. ch. 2 Elementa PhUosopkifr, partly. C. 25, » 5. 5, § 1, 5. M'or^.s, pp. 442, 445. Stewart, Om/- Opfra, ed. Molesworth, vol. i. p. 321. English. lines of Moral Philosophy, parti. § 1, 2; Col- Works, vol. i. p. 394. — Ed. lected Works, vol. ii. p. 12. — Ed. Lf.ct. XI. METAPHYSiCri. Ml 'listinguishable objects are confounded, .we are conscious of them as one; where no object is discriminated, we are not conscious of any. Before leaving this condition, I may ])arentlietically state, that, Avhile all philosophers admit that consciousness involves a dis- crimination, many do not allow it any cognizance of aught beyond tlie sphere of self The great majority of philosophers do this be- cause they absolutely deny the possibility of an immediate knowl- edge of external tilings, and, consequently, hold tliat consciousness in distinguishing the non-ego from the ego, only distinguishes self from self; for tliey maintain, that what we are conscious of as something ditferent from the })erceiving mind, is only, in reality, a modification of that mind, which we ai'C condemned to mistake for the material reality. Some philosophers, however, (as Reid and Stewai-t,) who hold, with mankind at large, that Ave do possess an immeply consciousness to things past, which sometimes is done in popular discourse, is to con- found consciousness with memory ; and all such confusion of words ought to be avoided in philosophical discourse. It is likewise to be observed, that consciousness is only of things in the mind, and not of external things. It is improper to say, I am conscious of the table which is before me. I perceive it, I see it ; but do not say I am conscious of it. As that consciousness by which we have a kiK>wiedge of the operations of our own minds, is a different powei* from that by which we perceive external objects, and as these dif- ferent ])Owers have different names in our language, and, I believe, in all languages, a philosopher ought carefully to preserve this dis- tinction, and never to confound things so different in their nature." The second is from the fifth chapter of the sixth Essay On the In- tellectual Poicers} " Consciousness is an operation of the under- standing of its own kind, and cannot be logically defined. The ob- jects of it are our present pains, our pleasures, our ho])es, our fears, our desires, our doubts, our thoughts of every kind ; in a word, all the passions and all the actions and operations of our own minds, while they are present. We may remember them when they are past ; but we are conscious of them only while they are present." Besides what is thus said in general of consciousness, in his treat- ment of the different special faculties, Eeid contrasts consciousness with each. Thus in his essays on Perce})tion, on Concejition or Imagination, and on Memory, he specially contradistinguishes con- sciousness fi-om each of these operations ; - and it is also incident- iilly by Keid,"^ but more articulately by Stewart,* discriminated from Attention and Reflection. According to the doctrine of these philosophers, consciousness is thus a special fiiculty, cooi'dinate Avith the other Consciousness a stie- itiiti i • i-i .i . ,, ,^ ,. nitelk'ctual iwwers, having like them a ]>ar- cial faculty, according . . to Keid and stpwurt ticular operation and a peculiar object. And what is the ])cculiar object which is proposed to consciousness?'' The peculiar objects of consciousness, says Dr, Reid, .lie all the present passions and oj)erations of our minds. Consciousness thus has for its objects, among the other modifica- J Works, p. 442. 3 See Works, p 239. Compare pp. 240, 258 347,419-20. 443. —Ed. 2 See Intfllectnal Powers, Essay ii. Works, p. 4 CoU. Works, vol ii. p. 134, and pp. 122, 12a 297, and Iway i. Works, p. 222; E.- premised, it is evident that if our intellectual oper- ations exist only in relation, it must be impossible that consci- ousness can take cognizance of one term of this relation Avithout also taking cognizance of the other. Knowledge, in general, is a relation between a subject knowing and an object known, and each operation of our cognitive faculties only exists by relation to a par- ticular object, — this object at once calling it into existence, and specifying the quality of its existence. It is, therefore, palpably impossible that we can be conscious of an act without being con- scious of the object to which that act is relative. This, however, is what Dr. Reid and Mr. Stewart maintain. They maintain that I can know that I know, without knowing what I know, — or that I can know the knowledge without knowing what the knowl- edge is about ; for example, that I am conscious of perceiving a book without being conscious of the book perceived, — that I am conscious of remembering its contents without being conscious of these contents remembered, — and so forth. The unsoundness of this opinion must, however, be articulately Shown in detail with ^]^oy^^n bv taking the ditterent ficulties in de- rnspect totlie diircrent ., , .*, , , t ■ • i i i- cugnitive faculties. ^ad, which they have contradistinguished from consciousness, and by showing, in regard to each, that it is altogether impossible to propose the operation of that faculty to the consideration of consciousness, and to withhold from consciousness its object. T shall commence with the faculty of Imagination, to which Dr. Reid and Mr. Stewart have chosen, under Ima^inntion. . ,. . . . , /• ^. various limitations, to give the name ot Concejw tion. ' This facultv is peculiarlv suited to evince the error of hold' ing that consciousness is cognizant of acts, but not of the objects of these acts. "Conceiving, Imagining, and Apprehending,'' says Dr. Reid, "are commonly usereliension. This is an operation of the mind difterent from ail those we have men- 1 Reid, Intellectual Powers, Kssay iv. ch. 1 ; World, p. 360, Stewart, Elements, vol. i oh. f Works, vol. ii. p. 145. — Ed. 148 METAPHYSICS Lkct. XII. tioned [Perception, Memory, etc.] Whatever we perceive, what- ever we remember, whatever we are conscious of, we have a full persuasion or conviction of its existence. What never had an existence cannot be remembered ; what has no existence at j^re- .sent cannot be the object of perception or of consciousness; but wliat never had, nor has any existence, may be conceived, livery man knows that it is as easy to conceive a winged horse or a cen- taur, as it is to conceive a horse or a man. Let it be observea, therefore, that to conceive, to imagine, to apprehend, when taket> in the proper sense, signify an act of the mind which implies no be- lief or judgment at alL It is an act of the mind by which nothing is affirmed or denied, and which therefore can neither be true nor false." ^ And again : " Consciousness is employed solely aboux objects that do exist, or have existed. But conception is often employed about olrjects that neither do, nor did, nor wili, exist. This is the very nature of this faculty, that its object^ though distinctly conceived, may have no existence. Such an object we call a creature of imagination, but this' creature nevet Avas created. " That we may not impose upon oui'selves in this matter, wt must distinguish between that act or operation of the mind, which we call conceiving an object, and the object which we conceive. When we conceive anything, there is a real act or oper- ation of the mind ; of this we are conscious, and can have no doubt of its existence. But every such act must have an object; for he that conceives must conceive something. Supjiose he conceives a centaur, he may have a distinct conception of this object, though no centaur ever existed." - And again : " I conceive a centaur. This conception is an operation of the mind of which I am conscious, and to which I can attend. The sole object of it is a centaur, an animal which, I believe, never existed." ^ Now, here it is admitted by Reid, that imagination has an object, and, in the example adduced, that this object has no existence out of the mind. The object of imagination is, therefore, in the mind, — is a modification of the mind. Now, can it be maintained that there can be a modification of mind, — a modification of which we are aware, but of which we are not conscious? But let us regard the matter in another aspect. We are conscious, says Dr. Reid, of the imagination of a centaur, but not of the centaur imagined. Now, nothing can be more evident than that the ob- ject and the act of imagination, are identical. Thus, in the ex- ample alleged, the centaur imagined and the act of imagining it, 1 Works, I,. ■223. 2 IVor/ti, p.386. 3 Works, p. SIS. Lect. XIL METAPHYSICS. 149 are one and indivisible. What is the act of imagining a centaur but the centaur imaged, or the image of the centaur; what is the image of the centaur but the act of imagining it? The cen- taur is both the object and the act of imagination : it is tlie same thing viewed in difterent rehitions. It is called the object of imagi- nation, when considered tis representing a possible existence, — for everything that can be construed to the mind, everything tlmt does not violate the laws of thought, in other words, everything that does not involve a contradiction, may be conceived by the mind as possible. I say, therefore, that the centaur is called the object of imagination, Avhen considered as representing a possible existence ; whereas the centaur is called the act of imagination, when con- sidered as the creation, work, or operation, of the mind itself The centaur imagined and the imagination of the centaur, are thus as much the same indivisible modification of mind as a square is the same figure, whether we consider it as composed of four sides, or as composed of four angles, — or as jiaternity is the same relation whether we look fi-om the son to the father, or from the fit her to the son. We cannot, therefore, be conscious of imagining an object without being conscious of the object imagined, and as regards imagination, Reid's limitation of consciousness is, therefore, futile. I proceed next to Memory : — "It is by Memory," says Dr. Rcid, " that we have an inmiediate knowledge of Memory. ' , . _,, . • x- "" ^• thmgs past. 1 he senses give us niturmation of things only as they exist in the present moment ; and this infor- mation, if it were not preserved by memory, would vanish instantly, ane taken. Consciousness is an immediate knowledsje of the present. We have, indeed, already sliown tliat consciousness is an iuiniediate knowled2:e, and, therefore, only of the actual or now-existent. This being admitted, and professing, as we do, to prove that consciousness is tlie one generic faculty of knowl- edge, we, consequently, must naaintaiu that all knowledge is imme- diate, and only of the actual or present, — in other words, that what is called mediate knowledge, knowledge of the past, knowledge of the absent, knowledge of the non-actual or possible, is either no knowledge at all, or only a knowledge contained in, and evolved out of, an innnediate knowledge of what is now existent and aelually present to the mind. This, at first sight, may appear like paradox ; I trust you will soon admit that the counter doctrine is self-repug- nant. I proceed, therefore, to saow that Dr. Reid's assertion of memory being an immediate knowledge of the past, is Memory i.ot an in.- ^^^^^ ^^^^^. ^-.jj^g^ |^^^^ ^^^^^ J^ iuvolves a COUtradic- mediafe kiiowli'djie of . . * , ., . tion in terms.' tlie past. Let US first determine what immediate knowl- edge is, and then see whether the knowledge we have of the past, through memoiy, can come under the conditions (•onuitionsofimme- ^^ immediate knowledge. Now nothing can be (liate knowk'dge. i V- n • more evident than the following positions : 1 , An object to be known immediately must be known in itself, — that is, in those modifications, een eonsidoring the concussiou of the viiiioii^ Iheo- Works, Noti-s \\ and O — KO). consciousness. i.jQ METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XIII. and bestowed the knowledge of material qualities on perception alone, allowing that of mental modifications to remain excTusively with consciousness. Be this, however, as it may, the exemption of tlie objects of ])erception from the sphere of consciousness, can be easily shown to be self-contradictorv. What ! say the partisans of Dr. Reid, ai-e Ave not to distinguish, as the product of different faculties, the knowledge we obtain of objects in themselves the most oi)posite ? Mind and matter are mutually separated by the whole diameter of being. Mind and matter are, in fact, nothing but Avords to express two series of phae- nomena known less in themselves, than in contration, and in which the two acts, severally cognitive of mind and of matter, sha.l be comprehended, and reduced to unity and correlation. But wliat is this but to admit at last, in an unphi- losophical com])lexity, the common consciousness of subject and object, of mind and matter, which we set out Avitli denying in its jthilosophical simplicity ? But, in the second ))lace, the attem])t of Reid to make conscious- ness conversant about the various cognitive fac- 12°, ijcid's limitation idtics to the exclusiou of their objects, is equally of consciousness is sui- impossible in regard to Perception, as we have ciiial ol'liis (li)Ctrine of , -i. ^ i • ^ ^- j_ r • ^- i sliown It to ne ni relation to Imatrmation and iiii iniinciliate knowl- _ ^ erii-e of tiie external Memory ; nay, the attempt, in the case of per- ■world. ception, would, if allowed, be even suicidal of his great doctrine of our iinniereviously reserved a sup})Osition on which Ave may possibly aAold some of tlie 3°, A Hiii)pot;itioii self-contradictioiis which emerge from Reid's on which 8oine of the proposing as the object of consciousness the Belf-coiilnuliclioii.s of ^ ^ t ^ • • i i Keid's doctrine may ''''"t' ^'"t excludmg from its coguizancc thc ob- bc avoided. j«'ct, of perception ; tluit is, the object of its own object. The supposition is, that Dr. Reid com- mitted the same error in reganl to ]K'rcej)tion, which he di-l in regard to memory and imagination, and that in nuiintaining our immediate knowledge in jierception, he meant nothing more than to maintain, that tlie mind is not, in that act, cognizant of any repre- sentative object different from its oavu modification, of any hrtium qidd ministering betAVeen itself aui .i .1 ta . -.^-^ are acts not eubordi- ''^'"^ ^"^t'^^'^" }"" ^^ Considered Attention and Re- nate to, or contained flection, Avhich, in like manner, they have main- in. consciousness. tained to be an act or acts, not subordinate to, or contained in, Consciousness. But, before proceeding to show that their doctritie on this point is almost equally untenable as on the preceding, it is necessary to clear ujt some confusion, and to notice certain collateral errors. Lkct. XIII. METAPHYSICS. 161 In the first place, on this lioad, tliese i)liiloso])liers are not at one ; for Mr. Stewart seems inadvertently to have Certain collateral er- misrepresented the Opinion of Dr. Reid in re- rors noticed. Stewart ^ . ^ _ misrepresents Reid's gard to the meaning and difference of Atten- doctrine of the mean- tion and lleflection. Reid either employs these ing and dincrencc ot terms as svnonymous expressions, or he distin- Attention and Keflec- . , ' , , , . . , . guishes them onlv^ by makino; attention relative tion. o J J o to the consciousness and perception of the pi'es- ent ; reflection to the memory of the past. In the fifth chapter of the second Essay on the Intellectnal Poiners^ he says, "In order, however, to our having a distinct notion of any of the operations of our own minds, it is not enough that we be conscious of them, for all men liave this consciousness : it is farther necessary tliat we attend to them while they are exerted, and reflect upon them with care while they are recent and fresh in our memory. It is neces- sary that, by emplo^ang ourselves frequently in this way,. Ave get the habit of this attention and reflection," etc. And in the first chapter of the sixth Essay, "Mr. Locke," he says, "has restricted the word reflection to that which is employed about the operations of our minds, without any authority, as I think, from custom, the arbiter of language : for surely I may reflect upon what I have seen or heard, as well as upon what I have thought. The word, in its j)roper and common meaning, is equally a])plicable to objects of sense, and to objects of consciousness, lie has likewise confounded reflection with consciousness, and seems not to have been aware that they are different powers, and appear at very different periods of life."- Ill the first of these quotations, Reid migiit use attention in relation to the consciousness of the present, reflection, to the memory of the past; but in tlie second, in saying that reflection "is equally applicable to objects of sense and to objects of con- sciousness," he distinctly indicates that the two tenns are used by him as convertible. Reid (I may notice by the Keid wren;,' in iiis Avay) is wliolly wroug ill his strictures on Locke censure of Locke's c ' \ • j. • ^ 3 c ^^ j_ j»j- ,,, , „ tor Ills restricted usage of the term rejfection ; usage of file tenn Kc- _ ... .' ,' flection. for it WMs Hot Until after his time that the term came, by Wolf, to be jihilosophically employed in a more extended signification than that in which Locke correctly applies it." Reid is likewise Avrong, if we literally understand his 1 Coll. Works, p. 258. liquet quid sit facultas rcflfcfondi, scilicet 2 Ibid., p. 420. quo 1 sit f:iciilta.s atfeiitioneni siiam 8uccos.>iive 3 (Wolf, Pxijdinln^in F.rnpirirn. ^ 2.57: 'At- ad L'ii(iu;i> in re pcn-rpta insunt. proarbilriodl- teutionis succos.>uva diipcflo ad ea qux In re rigondi."] Ki'ici is further criticized in the Au- percepta insnnf dioitur Krjlexia. TJnde simul thor's edition of his works, pp. 347,420. — Ed. 21 162 METAPHYSICS. Lect. Xlll words, in saying that reflection is employed in common languawfl in relation to objects of sense. It is never em. And in saying that ployed cxccpt npon the mind and its contents. Reflection is employed -itt ^ i • i . n in relation to objects ^^ ^^""°^ ^^ ^^^^'^ ^^ ^'^fl^^^ ^^P^n any externa\ of sense. object, except in so far as that object has been previously perceived, and its image become, part and parcel of our intellectual furniture. We may be said to reflect upon it in memory, but not in perception. But to return. Reid, therefore, you will observe, identifies attention and reflec. tion. Now Mr. Stewart, in the chapter on Attention in the firsV volume of his Elements^ says, " Some important observations on the subject of attention occur in difterent parts of Dr. Reid's writ, ings ; particularly in his Essays on the Intellectual Poiceis of 3Iah, p. 62, and his Essays on the Active Powers of Man, p. 78 et seq. To this ingenious author we are indebted for the remark, that atten. tion to things external is properly called observation; and attention to the subjects of our consciousness, reflections^ I may, however, notice a more important inadvertence of Mv. Stewart, and this it is the more requibitb to do^ Locke not the first j^g jj^g authority is worthy of high vespe^t, nox to use the term Re- , ,. , m , • , , • flection in its psycho- ^nly on account of philosophicul talent, Dui ot logical application. historical accuracy. In various passages of his writings, Mr. Stewart stat6>xu.<. Kpckorniniin, Opem^ torn. i. pp. 1600, flexiva coKitatio facile fit dcfloxiva." See KVl. (■oniiiiliiiciiises in ^Wst. tie Aninta, pp. Keckermami, Opfrn, toiii. i p. 4G0 ] 370,373.] 2 [See Scotus, Suprr Vniversnlihux Porphyrii, ."i EUmnit^, X.C.I. Collected Works, vo\.\\. p. (^u. iii. : "Ad tcrtiiiin dico tiuod ilia propos- 122. — Kn. itio Atistotcli.s, nihil est in intelli'ctu <'iuin t P Origin,- (Its Connmsnncrs Hamainef, part iniinuni inlolIij;ibik', (jnod fst scilicet ipiod i. ;* ii. cli. 2. — Ki>. ,uid est rei nialeiialis, non antein de unuiibus o PreUctiunes Logirrr. et Metaphysicrr auctor* \KT!-17*).) — Kd sed jier reftexionein intellectus.'" ( l!y the 7 JJaiiilbiirli (l>r Pyuli(ilo«)i-, p. I'll. — Kl» Scoli.sts the act of intellect was rej^arded as 8 Er/ahriingfn i""/ Cntfrsuc/nin^m ilf>er lirn threefold: Rectus, — Collatiftis, — lii^cxus. See M'tischen von karl Tranz von Irwing, ISerlin, CoDStantius (a Saruano), Tract, de Sfcundis 1777, b. i. p. 411 ; h. ii. p 2Ke««c«aM adage, " Pluribus intentus minoi- est ad singula sensus." Such being the law, it follows that, when our interest in any par- ticular object is excited, and wlieji we wish to obtain all the knowl- edge concerning it in our power, it behooves us to limit our consid- eration to that object, to the exclusion of others. This is done by an act of volition or desire, Avhich is called attention. But to view attention as a special act of intelligence, and to distinguish it from consciousness, is utterly ineiit. Consciousness may be compared to a telescope, attention to the pulling out or in of the tubes in accom- modating the focus to the object; and we might, with e(pial justice, distinguish in the eye, the adjustment of the pupil froni the general organ of vision, as, in the mind, distinguish attention from consci- ousness as separate fliculties. Not, however, that they are to be accounted the same. Attention is consciousness, and something -fi/./. more. It is consciousness voluntarily applied, under its law of limTtatfons, to some determinate object ; it is consciousness concen- trated. In this respect, attention is an interesting subject of con- sideration ; and having now finished what I proposed in proof of the position, that consciousness is not a special facidty of knowl- edge, but coextensive with all our cognitions, Attention as a Ren- J ^\^^\\ proceed to Consider it in its various . aspects and relations; and havuig lust stated consciousness. ^ ' ^ '' the law of limitation, I shall go on t<> what I have to say in regard to attention as a general phtenomenoii of consciousness. And, here, I have first to consider a question in which 1 am again sorry to find myself oppose"<^ v,-\\o^(i o])nn(.n ou this, as on every other point of psychological observation, is justly entitled to the highest consideration. The philosopher I allude to is Mr. Stewart. The question is. Can we at tend to jnore than a single olyect at once? For if attention be nothing but tlie concentration or consciousness on a smaller nund)er of objects than constitute its Avidest compass of siuiultaneous knowledge, it is evi- dent that, unless this widest compass of consciousness be limited to only two objects, w^e do attend when we converge consciousness on any smaller nundx-r than that total com])lement of objects which it can embrace at onco. For example, if we sujipose that 1 [Cf.-Steeb. Vhrr lim Mmsrhn, ii. liT'J; anil Irics, Anthropologit, i. 83.] 166 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XIII. the number of objects wliich consciousness can simultaneously ap- prebend be six, the limitation of consciousness to five, or four, or three, or two, or one, will all be acts of attention, different in de- gree, but absolutely identical in kind. Mr. Stewart's doctrine is as follows: — "Before," lie says, "we leave the subj^'ct of Attention, it is proper to .Stewart quoted in ^.^j.^ ^^^^^j^^ ^^ ^ Question which has been stated reference to this ques- . ^ tion. ^^'i'^" respect to it; whether we have the power of attending to more than one thing at one and the same instant ; or, in other Avords, whether Ave can attend, at one and the same instant, to objects which we can attend to separately? This question has, if I am not mistaken, been already decided by several philosophers in the negative ; and I acknowledge, for my own part, that although their opinion has not only been called in question by others, but even treated with some degree of con- tempt as altogether hypothetical, it appears to me to be the most reasonable and philosophical that we can form on the subject. " There is, indeed, a great variety of cases in Avhich the mind apparently exerts different acts of attention at once ; but from the instances which have already been mentioned, of the astonishing rapidity of thought, it is obvious tliat all this may be explained without supposing those acts to be coexistent; and I may even A^enture to add, it may all be explained in the most satisfactory manner, without ascribing to our intellectual operations a greater degree of rapidity than that with Avliich Ave knoAv, from the fact, that they are sometimes carried on. The effect of practice in in- creasing this capacity of apparently attending to different things at once, renders this explanation of the phaenomenon in question more })robable than any other. " The case of the equilibrist and rope-dancer already mentioned, is particularly favorable to this explanation, as it affords direct evi- dence of the possibility of the mind's exerting different successive acts in an interval of time so short, as to produce the same sensible effect as if they had been exerted at one and the same moment. In this case, indeed, the rapidity of thought is so remarkable, that if the different acts of the mind were not all necessarily accom- panied with different movements of the eye, there can be no reason for doubting that the philosophers Avhose doctrine I am now con- troverting, Avould have asserted that they are all mathematically coexistent. "Upon a question, lioAvever, of this sort, which does not admit of a perfectly direct appeal to the fact, I would by no means be un- derstood to decide A\'ith confidence ; and, therefore, I should wish Lect. XIII. MET A PHYSICS. 167 the conclusions I am now to state, to be received as only condition- ally establislitMl. They are necessary and obvious consequences of the general ])rin('ij)le, ' that the mind can only attend to one tiling at once ;' but must stand or fall with the truth of that supposition. " It is commonly understood, I believe, tliat in a concert of music, a good ear cmu attend to the different parts of the music separately, or can attend to them all at once, and feel the full effect of the har- monv. If the doctrine, however, Avhich I have endeavored to establish be atlmitted, it will follow that in the latter case the mind is constantly varying its attention from the one part of the music to the other, and that its operations are so rapid as to give us no per- ception of an interval of time. "The same doctrine leads to some curious conclusions with re- spect to visi(jn. Supj)ose the eye to be fixed in a particular position, and the ])ictuie of an object to be painted on the retina. Does the mind perceive the complete figure of the object at once, or is this jierception the result of the various perce])tions we have of the different points in the outline? With resj)ect to this question, the principles already stated lead me to conclude that the mind does at one and the same time ])erceive every point in the outline of the object, (i)rovided the whole of it be painted on the retina at the same instant,^ for ])erception, like consciousness, is an involun- tary operation. As no two ])oints, however, of the outline are in the same direction, every ]>oint by itself constitutes just as distinct an object of attention to the mind, as if it were separated by an Interval of em]»ty space from all the rest. If the doctrine, there- fore, formerly stated be just, it is impossible for the mind to attend to more th.ni one of these ])oints at once; and as the perception of the figure of the object implies a knowledge of the relative situ- ation of the diffl'rent points with respect to each other, we must conclude that the jierception of figure by the eye is the result of a number of (litl"erent acts of attention. These acts of attention, however, are jterformed with such rapidity, that the effect, with respect to us, is the same as if the perception were instantaneous. "In farther confh-mation of this reasoning, it may be remarked, that if the perception of visible figure were an immediate conse- quence of the picture on the retina, we should have, at the first glance, as distinct an idea of a figure of a thousand sides as of a triangle or a sipiare. The truth i.s, that when the figure is very simple, the jirocess of the nvind is so rajdd tliat the perce})tion seems to be instantaneous; hut when the sides are multii)lied beyond a certain numbei-, the interval of time necessary for tht«e different acts of ;ittciitii«ii l)e<<>iiics percejitible. 168 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XIII. " It iriiiy, perhaps, be asked what I mean by a point in the outline of a figure, and what it is that constitutes this point one object of attention. The ansAver, I apprehend, is that this ])oint is the mini- rnuni visibile. If the point be less, we cannot perceive it; if it be greater, it is not all seen in one direction. "If these observations be admitted, it will follow that, without the faculty of memory, we could have had no jierception of visible figure." ^ On this ])oint. Dr. Brown not only coincides with Mr. Stewart in regard to the special fact of attention, but Brown coiucides , • i ^i a. ^i • t . • , . .,, ^^ , asserts m gern^ral tiiat tlie mind cannot exist at with Stewart. ^ , _ the same moment in tAvo difterent states, that is, in two states in either of which it can exist separately. " If the mind of man," he says, " and all the changes which take place in it, from the first feeling with which life commenced to the last with which it closes, could be made visible to any other thinking being,, a certain series of feelings alone, — that is to say, a certain number of successive states of mind, would be distinguishable in it, form- ing indeed a variety of sensations, and thoughts, and jiassions, as momentary states of the mind, but all of them existing individu- ally, and successively to each other. To suppose the mind to exist in two different states, in the same moment, is a matiifost absurdity." " I shall consider these statements in detail. Mr. Stewart's first illustration of his doctrine is drawn from a con- Criticism of stew- cert of music, in which, he says, " a good ear art's doctrine. His ^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^j^^ different parts of the music nrst illustration irom ^ the phajnomena of Separately, or can attend to them all at once, souD'i. and feel the full effect of the harmony." This example, however, appears to me to amount to a reduction of his opinion to the impossible. What are the facts in this exam})le? In a musical concert, Ave have a multitude of, different instruments and A'oices emitting' at once an infinitA' of different sounds. These all reach the ear at the same indivisible moment in Avhich they perish, and, consequentl}', if heard at all, much more if their mutual relation or harmony be ]>erceiA'^ed, they must be all heard simultaneously. This is evident. For if the mind can attend to each minimum of sound only successiA^ely, it, consequently, requires a minimum of time in AA'hich it is exclusively occupied Avith each minimum of sound. Noav, in this minimum of 1 Eiements^Yol. i. cha.'p. 2. Works, \o\. ii. \t. 2 Lfrlnres on the Pkilosojihy of the Human 140 — 14.5. .i;/«r/, Lect. xi. p. 67, (ed. 18.30). —Ed. Lect. XIU. METAPHYSICS. l(;i> time, there coexist witli it, and with it perish, many minima vt' sound whicl), ex h}/jx)t/iesi, are not perceived, are nut heard, as not attended to. In a concert, therefore, on tliis doctrine, a small num- ber of sounds only could be perceived, and above tliis petty maxi- mum, all sounds would be to the ear as zero. But wliat is the fact? No concert, however numerous its instruments, has yet beeu found to have reached, far less to have surpassed, the capacity of mind and its organ. But it is even more impossible, on tliis hypothesis, to understand how we can perceive the relation of difterent Impossible, on stew- sounds, that is, have any feeling of the harmony art-s doctrine, to uu- ^^ ^ conccrt. In this respcct, it is, indeed, felo derstand how we can _...,, perceive the relation ^^^ ^^- ^^ ^^ maintained that we cannot attend of different sounds. at oiice to two sounds, wc caiinot perceive them as coexistent, — consequently, the feeling of har- mony of which Ave are conscious, must proceed from the feeling of the relation of these sounds as successively perceived in difterent points of time. We must, therefore, compare the past sound, as retained in memory, witli the j^resent, as actually ])erceived. But this is impossible on the hypothesis itself. For we must, in this case, attend to the past sound in memory, and to the present sound in sense at once, or they will not be perceived in mutual relation ha harmonic. But one sound in memory and another sound in sense,, are as much two different objects as two different sounds in sense. Therefore, one of two conclusions is inevitable, — either we can attend to two different objects at once, and the hypothesis is dis- proved, or we cannot, and all knowledge of relation and harmony is im])OSsible, which is absurd. The consequences of this doctnne are Cijually startling, as taken from ]\[r. Stewart's second illustration from the His second iiiu.sfra- phfenoiueiia of visiou. He holds that the per- tion from the pliK'- . . i ,> •no.nena ..f vision, ccptiou ot hgurc by the eye IS the result ot :i number of separate acts of attention, and that eacli act of attention has for its object a point the least that can be seen, tlie mlnhninii visihile. On this liyjiotlu'sis, we must suppose that, at every instantaneous ()])eiiing of the eyelids, the moment sufficient for us to take in the figure of the objects comprehended in the s])here of vision, is subdividee or telescope is to the bod- ance of attention. _ ^ / _ ilv eye. The facultv of attention is not, there- fore, a special facidty, but merely consciousness acting under the law of limitation to which it is subjected. But whatever be its rela- tions to the special faculties, attention doubles all their efficiency^ and affords them a power of which they would otherwise be des- titute. It is, in fact, as we are at present constitute*!, the primary condition of their activity. Having thus concluded the discussion of the question regarding the relation of consciousness to the other cognitive faculties, I 1 See Reid, yJrj/i,-« PoK'frj, Essay ii. ch. 3. irortj, p. oST. — Ed. Lkct. XIV. METAPHYSICS. 173 proceeded to consider various questions, w liich, as not peculiar to any of the special foculties, fall to be discussed Can we attend to under the head of consciousness, and I corn- more tlian a sinele ob- 1 • 1 .1 • 11 -yxTi A.I . . , , menced witli the curious i)robk'in, Whether we ject at once: -^ _ can attend to more than a single object at once. Mr. Stewart maintains, though not without hesitation, the nega- tive. I endeavored to show you that his arguments are not con- clusive, and that they even involve suppositions wliich are so mon- strous as to reduce the thesis ho su])ports ad imposaibik. I ha\e now only to say a word in answer to Dr. Brown's Brown's doctrine. assertion of the same proposition, though in dif- that the mind cannot feront terms. In tlie passage I adduced in our exist at the same mo- i , t ^ i v a1 a- ^ . , ,.„. . last Lecture, he commences by the assertion, ment in two different ' _ *' jitates. that the mind cannot exist, at the same mo- ment, in two different states, — that is, in two states in either of which it can exist separately, and concludes with the averment that the contrary supposition is a manifest absurdity. I find the same doctrine maintained by Locke This doctrine main- j^^ ^|^.^^ valuable, but ncglcctcd, treatise entitled tained by Locke. . ^-r . . .. x»v ^r i i 7 ■> ^ ■ ' — ) All' Examination of Fere Malebranches Optii- f ion of Seeing all Things in God. In the thirty-ninth section he savs: "Different sentiments are different modifications of the mind. The mind or the soul that perceives, is one immaterial, indivisible substance. Now, I see the Avhite and black on this paper, I hear one sinsfinir in tlie next room, I feel the warmth of the fire I sit bv, and I taste an api)le I am eating, and all this at the same time. Now, I ask, take modification for what you please, can the same unextended, indivisible substance have different, nay, inconsistent and opposite, (as these of white and black must be,) modifications nt the same time? Or must we suppose distinct parts in an indi- visible substance, one for black, another for white, and another for red ideas, and so of the rest of those infinite sensaticms which wi- have in sorts and degrees ; all which we can distinctly perceive, and so are distinct ideas, some whereof are o]>posite as heat and cold, which vet a man may feel at the same time?" Leibnitz has not only given a refutation of Locke's Essag^ but likewise of liis Examination of Malehranda-. In reference to tlie passage I havf just quoted Leibnitz says : " Mr. Locke asks. Opposed by Leib- ,^^^ ^j^^^ ^,^^^^ unextcuded, indivisible substance, iiitz. ■ .... have ])ositc modifications, at the same time?' I rej»ly, it can. AViiat is incon- sistent in the same object, is not inconsistent in the representation of different objects which Ave conceive at the same moment. For 174 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XIV this there is no necessity that there shoiikl be diiFerent parts in the soul, as it is not necessary that there shoukl be difterent parts in the point on which, however, different angles rest."^ The same thing had, however, been even better said by Aristotle opposed to Aristotle, wliosc doctrine I prefer translating to foregoing doctrine. jou, as more pcrspicuous, in the following pas- Ilis view, as para- _, . /■% ^^ i phrased by Phiiopo- ^agc from J Danncs Grammaticus, (better known BUS. by the surname Philoponus,) — a Greek philoso- pher, who flourished towards the middle of the sixth century. It is taken from the Prologue to his valuable com- mentary on the De Aniina of Aristotle ; and, what is curious, the very sup])osition which on Locke's doctrine would infer the cor- poreal nature of mind, is alleged, by the Aristotelians and Con- dillac, in proof of its immateriality. " Nothing bodily," says Aris- totle, " can, at the same time, in the same part, receive contraries. The finger cannot at once be wholly participant of white and of l)lack, nor can it, at once and in the same place, be both hot and cold. But the sense at the same moment apprehends contraries. Wherefore, it knows that this is first, and that second, and that it discriminates the black from the white. In what manner, there- fore, does sight simultaneously perceive contraries? Does it do so by the same ? or does it by one part apprehend black, by another white ? If it does so by the same, it must aiiprehend these with- out pai-ts, and it is incorporeal. But if by one part it apprehends this quality, and by another that, — this, he says, is the same as if I perceived this, and you that. But it is necessary that that which judges should be one and the same, and that it should even apprehend by the same the objects which are judged. Body can- not, at the same moment and by the same part, apply itself to con- traries or things absolutely different. But sense at once applies itself to black and to white ; it, therefore, applies itself indivisibly. It is thus shown to be incorporeal. For if by one part it a})}>re- hended white, by another j^art apprehended black, it could not discern the one color from the other; for no one can distinguish that which is perceived by himself as different from that which is perceived by another."^ So far, Pliloponus. 1 Remarques siir U Sentiment du Fire Male- 5jj /cex'^'P"''/'**'''"^ fcSex""*" Kplveiv on fT(- branche ; Opera Phitosophica, edit. Erdmann, p. pov rh y\vKV rov \fVKOV, dAAa Se? ect rivi 451. —Ed. &ij.(p(t> Sr)\a elfai. Olirw fj.fv yap Kh.v el tov 2 The text of Aristotle here partially par- ^'ev iyw tov 6e ah aXaStow, SrjKov h.f tiri on aphrascd, (Troffim, f. 3b cd. 1535), and more 4V«po aWriKwy AeTSe rh (i/ Keyeiv on eVe- fully in Commentary on texts, 144. 149, is as pov- frepov y^p rh yAvKV rod \fVKOv. Aeyei follows;— ''H Kol STjKou Sri t] ffapf ovK ta-ri &pa rh a\n6' "Clffre ws Key ft, oD'toi kolL voel rh (CTxaTov ala^riipiov avdyKT) yap ?jv kou alcrbiverai. "Oti fx.\v ovv ovx ol6v re Ke- airrSfifuov atrrov Kpiveiv rh Kptvov. Oifre X'^f "'''^**'<"^ Kplvtiv rh. Kex<^pi) K(d vvv, Kol 8ti h'j/' fijua &pa. "ClaTf A^^ci- I'mjfiaTdiv Sxnrfp h' ovtwi' Ti f.iffTOi' Koi fv &xa>p'KTTa) ypi^'-";'- r>' Animn, Si fv ■noiovv, TOUTO 6 vovi tKOUTrov. — Ed. lib. iii. c. 2, 4 11. Cf. §» 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, with 176 ilKT APH YSICS. Lect. XIV Their sentences are thus bound up in one organic whole, the prece ding parts remaining suspended in the mind, till the meaning, like an electric spark, is flashed from the conclusion to the commence- ment. This is the reason of the greater rhetorical effect of termin- ating the Latin period by the verb. And to take a more elementary example, — "How could the mind comprehend these words of Horace, 'Bacchum in remotis carmina rupibus Vidi docentem,' unless, it could seize at once those images in which the adjectives are separated fi-ora their substantives ? " ^ The modem philosophers who have agitated this question, are not aware that it was once canvassed likewise in This question can- ^j^g schools of the middle ages. It was there vassed in the schools i i i • • r, • n of the middle ao-es expressed by the proposition, Jrossitne intellectus noster jylura simul intellicfere. ^ Maintaining the negative, we find St. Thomas, Cajetanus, Ferrariensis, Capri- olus, Hervaeus, Alexander Alensis, Albertus Magnus, andDurandus; Avhile the affirmative was asserted by Scotus, Occam, Gregorius Ariminensis, Lichetus, Marsilius, Biel, and others. Supposing that the mind is not limited to the simultaneous con- sideration of a single object, a question arises, How many objects How mauv objects can it embrace at once ? can the mind embrace -n * t, i t ^ i t i ^j jjj^gg , You Will recollect that 1 formerly stated that the greater the number of objects among which the attention of the mind is distiibuted, the feebler and less distinct will be its cognizance of each. 'o " Pluribus intentus, minor est ad singula sensus." Consciousness will thus be at its maximum of intensity when attention is concentrated on a single object ; and the question comes to be, liow many .several objects can the mind simultaneously survey, not with vivacity, but without absolute confusion ? I find this problem stated and differently answered, by different philoso- 'phers, and apparently without a knowledge of each other. By Charles Bonnet^ the mind is allowed to have a distinct notion of i [Bonstetten, Eludes de V Homme, torn. ii. i. c. 22, p. 134, fol. a (ed. Aid.) Nemesius. De p. 377, note.] Natura Hominis, c. vii. p. 184 — ed. Mattha;i.! 3 [Essai de Psychologies c. xxxviii. p. 132 2 [See Aquinas, Summa, pars i., Q. 85. art. Compare his Etsai Annlytique sur I' Ame, torn 4. Cf. Alex. Aphrodisiensis, De Anima, lib. i. c. xiii. p. 163 et seq.\ Lect. XIV. METAPHYSICS. 177 ■six objects at once; by Abraham Tucker' the number is Hmitcd to four; wliile Destutt-Tracy - again amplifies it to six. The opinion of the first and last of these philosophers, apj^ears to me correct. You can easily make the experiment for yourselves, but you must beware of grouping the objects into classes. If you throw a hand- ful of marbles on the floor, you will find it difficult to view at once more than six, or seven at most, without confusion; but if you group tlieni into twos, or threes, or fives, you can comprehend as many groups as you can units ; because the mind considers these groups only as units, — it views them as wholes, and throws their parts out of consideration. You may perform the experiment also by an act of imagination. Before leaving this subject, I shall make some observations on the value of attention, considered in its highest degree as an act of will, and on the imj)ortance of forming betimes the habit of delib- erate concentration. The g!-eater capacity of continuous thinking that a man jjos- sesses, the longer and more steadily can he fol- Vaiue of attei.fiou Jq^ ^y^ ^;\^q ganie train of thought, — the stronger ■considered ill its liiarli- • i • /• ^^ ,• -i • , is his power of attention ; and in proportion to est degree as au act '■ ' I 1 ^ '^ "" "-^ <,r will. his power of attention will be the success with which his labor is rewarded. All commence- ment is difficult; and this is more especially true of intellectuid effort. AVhen we turn for the first time our view on any given •object, a hundred other things still retain possession of our thoughts. Even when we are able, by au arduous exertion, to break loose from the matters which have previously engrossed us, or which every moment force themselves on our consideration, — even when a resolute determin.ition, or the attraction of the new object, has smoothed the way on which we are to travel; still the mind is con- tinually ])erplexed by the glimmer of intrusive and distracting thoughts, which prevent it from placing that which should exclu- sively occupy its view, in the full clearness of an undivided light. How great soever may be the interest which we take in the new object, it will, however, only be fully established as a favorite when it his been fused into an integial part of the system of our previous knowledge, and of our established associations of thoughts, feelings, and desires. But this can only ])e accomplished by time and custom. Our imagination and our memory, to which we must L. 1 [Light of Nature, c. xiv. § 5.] hert, Melanges, vol. iv. pp. 40, 151. Ancillon, 2 [tli'oUf^ie, toiii. i. p. 45.3 (oinpHre Do>j- Nouveaux Mi'langrs. torn ii. p. 135. Male- «rando, Dt.\ Sii^nm, i. 107, who allows us to braiiclic, Recherche, liv. iii. c. 2, torn. i. p. 191.] embrace, at one vii'w, live unities. D'Alem- 23 178 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XIV. resort for materials with which to ilhxstrate and enliven our new study, accord us their aid unwillingly, — indeed, only by compul- sion. But if we are vigorous enough to pursue our course in spite of obstacles, every step, as we advance, will be found easier ; the mind becomes more animated and energetic ; the distractions grad- ually diminish ; the attention is more exclusively concentrated upon its object; the kindred ideas flow with greater freedom and abundance, and afford an easier selection of what is suitable for illustration. At length, our system of thought harmonizes with our pursuit. The whole man becomes, as it may be, philosopher, or historian, or poet ; he lives only in the trains of thought relating to this character. He now energizes freely, and, consequently, with pleasure ; for pleasure is the reflex of unforced and unim})eded energy. All that is produced in this state of mind, bears the stamp of excellence and perfection. Ilelvetius justly observes, that the very feeblest intellect is capable of comprehending the inference of one mathematical position from anotlier, and even of making such an inference itself.' Now, tlie most difticult and complicate demonstrations in the works of a Newton or a LajJace, are all made up of such immediate inferences. They are like houses composed of single bricks. No greater exertion of intellect is required to make a thousand such inferences than is requisite to make one ; as the effort of laying a single brick is the maximum of any individual effort in the construction of such a house. Thus, the difference between an ordinary mind and the mind of a Newton, consists principally in this, that the one is capable of the application of a more continuous attention than the other, — that a Newton is able without fatigue to connect inference with inference in one long series towards a determinate end; while the man of inferior capacity is soon obliged to break or let fall the thread which he had begun to spin. This is, in fact, what Sir Isaac, with Sir Isaac Newton. , ., ^ , , , i ' i£> i -i. equal modesty and shrewdness, himselr admit- ted. To one who comjjlimented him on his genius, he replied that if he had made any discoveries, it was owing more to patient atten- tion than to any other talent.^ There is but little analogy between mathematics and play-acting; but I heard the great Mrs. Siddons, in nearly the same language, attribute the whole superiority of her unrivalled talent to the more intense study which she bestowed upon her parts. If what Alcibiades, in the Symposium^ of Plato, narrates of Socrates were true, the father of Greek philosophy must have possessed this fac- ulty of meditation or continuous attention in the highest degrea 1 i)« J' Ej;>rit — DiscourP iij. C. iv. — En 2 See Reid's Wnrkf.-p 537 3 P. 220 —Ed. Lect. XIV. METAPHYSICS. 179 The story, indeed, has some appearance of exaggeration ; but it shows what Alcibiades, or rather Plato through him, deemed tlie requisite of a groat thinker. According to this report, in a mih- tary exi)edition which Socrates made along with Alcibiade.s, the philosopher was seen by the Athenian array to stand for a whole day and a night, until the breaking of the second morning, motion- less, Avith a fixed gaze, — thus showing that he was uninterrui)tedly engrossed with the consideration of a single subject: "And thus," says Alcibiades, " Socrates is ever wont to do when his mind is occupied with inquiries in which there are difficulties to be over- come, lie then never interrupts his meditation, and forgets to eat, and drink, and sleep, — everything, in short, until his inquiry has reached its termination, or, at least, until he has seen some light in it." In this history there may be, as I have said, exaggeration ; but still the truth of the principle is undeniable. Like Newton, Descartes arrogated nothing to the force of his intellect. "What he had accomplished more than other men, that he attributed to the superiority of his method;^ and Bacon, in like manner, eulogizes his method. Bacon. .... ,, . !" . — in that it i)laces all men with equal attention upon a level, and leaves little or nothing to the prerogatives of genius.- Nay, genius itself has been analyzed by the shrewdest observers into a higher capacity of attention. Helvetius. „ . ,, tt i • i " Genius, says Helvetius, wiiom we have al- ready quoted, "is nothing but a continued attention," (^une atten- tion suicie)? "Genius," says Buftbn,* "is only a protracted patience," {tine lonyue patience). "In the exact sciences, at least," says Cuvier,* "it is the patience of a sound intellect, when invincible, which truly constitutes genius." And Chesterfield has also Chesterfield. i ^ ,, -k /* i • observed, that " the power or applying an atten- tion, steady and nndissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of a superior genius.'"' These examples and authorities concur in establishing the impor- tant truth, that he who would, with success, attem]>t discovery, eitlier l)y inquiry into the works of nature, or by meditation on llu- phenomena of mind, must Mccpiire the faculty of ab.stracting him- self, for a season, IVum the invasion of surrounding ol)jects ; must be 1 DijtfOttri rf u^ T,'„ TousMint, De hi /'(n.si'f.t, 11. 219.1 2 Nov. Org., lib. I. aph. 61. — Kd. ' ' i j fi I^ttrrs to his Son. Letter Ixxxix. [Com- 3 De r Esprit, Discours iii. chap. iv. — Ed. ^^^^ Bonnet, Baai Annlytique, torn, i , pn-face, •» [Quoted by Ponelle, Manuel, p. 371.] p. 8.) 180 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XIV able even, in a certain degree, to emancipate himself from the domin- ion of the body, and live, as it were, a pure intelligence, within the circle of his thoughts. This f-iculty has been instancesof thepow- j^anifested. more or less, by all whose names are er of Abstraction. ' r i • n associated with the progress of the intellectual sciences. In some, indeed, the power of abstraction almost degen- erated into a habit akin to disease, and the examples which now occur to me, would almost induce me to retract what I have said about the exaggeration of Plato's history of Socrates, Archimedes,^ it is well known, was so absorbed in a geometrical meditation, that he was fii'st aware of the storm- ing of Syracuse by his own death-wound, and his exclamation on the entrance of Roman soldiers was, — Noli turbare circulos meos. In like manner, Joseph Scaliger, the most learned of men, when a Protestant student in Joseph Scaliger. t-» • i • ^i- ^ i r HT Pans, was so engrossed in the study oi Homer, that he became aware of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and of his own escajje, only on the day subsequent to the catastrophe. The iDhilosopher Caraeades^ was habitually liable to Carneades. n n ^- • n i i ntsoi meditation, so proiound, that, to prevent him from sinking from inanition, his maid found it necessary to feed him like a child. And it is reported of New- ton, that, while engaged in his mathematical researches, he sometimes forgot to dine. Cardan,^ one of the most illustrious of philosophers and mathematicians. Cardan. . i • i i i was once, upon a journey, so lost in thought, that he forgot both his way and the object of his journey. To the ques- tions of his driver whither he should proceed, he made no answer ; and when he came to himself at nightfall, he was surprised to find the carriage at a stand-still, and directly under a gallows. The mathematician Vieta was sometimes so buried in meditation, that for hours he bore more resemblance to a dead person than to a living, and was then wholly unconscious of everything going on around him. On the day of his marriage, the great Budaeus forgot every- thing in philological speculations, and he was only awakened to the affairs of the external world by a tardy embassy from the marriage-party, who found him absorbed in the composition of his Cominentarii. It is beautiftilly observed by Malebranche, " that the discovery of 1 See Valerius Maximus, lib. viii. c. 7. —Ed. 3 /6td., lib. viii. c.7.— Ed. 8 [Steeb, ijbtr den Menschen, ii. 671 ] Lkct. XIV. METAPHYSICS. ISi trutVi can only be matle by the labor of attention; because it is only the labor of attention which has litrht for its MaiebranchcM noted reward;"^ and in another place : " " The atten- on place aud impor- r- ^^ • ^ ^^ j. • ^ i i , ,, ^. tion of the intellect is a natural prayer by tunce of attention. _ _ i j j which Ave obtain the enlightennu'iit of reason. But since the fall, the intellect frequently experiences appalling drout^hts; it cannot pray; the labor of attention fotigues and afflicts it. In flict, this labor is' at first great, and the recompense scanty ; while, at the same time, we are unceasingly solicited, pressed, agi- tated by the imagination and the ])assions, whose inspiration and impulses it is always agreeable to obey. Nevertheless, it is a matter of necessity; we must invoke reason to be enlightened ; there is no other way of obtaining light and intelligence but l)y the labor of attention. Faith is a gift of God which we earn not by our merits ; but intelligence is a gift usually only conceded to desert. Faith is a pure grace in every sense ; but the understanding of a truth is a grace of such a character that it must be merited by labor, or by the cooperation of grace. Those, then, who are ca])able of this labor, and who are always attentive to the truth which ought to guide them, have a disposition which would undoubtedly deserve a name more masrnificent than those bestowed on the most si)lendid virtues. But although this habit or this virtue be inseparable from the love of order, it is so little known among us that I do not know if we have done it the honor of a particular name. May I, therefore, be pardoned in calling it by the equivocal name of force of intcnect. To acquire this true force by which the intellect su))ports the labart. For without the labor of attention, we shall never comju-ehend the grandeur of religion, the sanctity of morals, tlic littleness of all that is not God, the absurdity of the passions, and of all our internal miseries. Without this labor, the soul will live in blindness and in disorder; because there is naturally no other way to obtain the light that should conduct us ; we shall be eternally under disquietude and in strange embarrassment; for we fear every- thing when Ave walk in tlarkness and surrounded by precipices. It is true that faith guides and sujijiorts; but it does so only as it 1 Traitfdf Moral", partif i cliap. \ i. j 1. - Ihul.. partiei. chap. v. ^ 4. — Et>. 182 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XIV. produces some light by the attention which it excites in us ; for light alone is what can assure minds, like ours, which have so many enemies to fear." I have translated a longer extract than I intended when I began ; but the truth and importance of the observations study of the writ- .^^.^ ^^ OT-eat, and they are so admirably expressed ings of Malebranche . , , f , , , . . . , , \ \ recommended. ^^ JVl ale bran chcs own inmiitable style, that it was not easy to leave oflT. They are only a frag- ment of a very valuable chapter on the subject, to which I would earnestly refer you, — indeed, I may take this opportunity of saying, that there is no philosophical author who can be more profitably stud- ied than Malebranche. As a thinker, he is perhaps the most profound that France has ever produced, and as a writer on philosophical sub- jects, there is not another European author who can be placed before him. His style is a model at once of dignity and of natural ease ; and no metaphysician has been able to express himself so clearly and precisely without resorting to technical and scholastic terms. That he was the author of a celebrated, but exploded hypothesis, is, per- haps, the reason why he is far less studied than he otherwise deserves. His works are of principal value foi" the admirable observations on human nature which they embody ; and Avere everything to be expunged from them connected with the Vision of all things in the Deity, and even with the Cartesian hypotheses in general, they would still remain an inestimable treasury of the acutest analyses, expressed in the most appropriate, and, therefore, the most admirable elo- quence. In the last respect, he is only approached, certainly not surpassed, by Hume and Mendelssohn. I have dwelt at greater length upon the practical bearings of Attention, not only because this principle constitutes the better half of all intellectual poAver, but because it is of consequence that you should be fully aware of the incalculable importance of acquiring, by early and continued exercise, the habit of attention. There are, however, many points of great moment on which I have not touched, and the dependence of Memory upon Attention might alone form an interestinc: matter of discussion. You will find some excellent observations on this subject in the first and third volumes of Mr. Stewart's Elements} 1 See Works, ii. ; Elements, i. p. 122 et ««9.,andp. 352. — Ed. LECTURE XY. CONSCIOUSNESS, — ITS p:VIDENCE AND AUTHORITY. Having now concluded tlie discussion in regard to what Con- sciousness is, and shown you tliat it constitutes tlie fundamental form of every act of knowledge ; — I now pro- Coiisciousne.s the ^^^^^. ^^^ consider it as the source from wlience source of I'liilosdpliy. . /. • i t>i -i i « wi' must derive every tact m the I'hilosophy of Mind. And, in prosecution of this purpose, I shall, in the first place, endeavor to show you that it really is the princi])al, if not the only source, from which all knowledge of tlie mental phasnomcna must be obtained ; ^ in the sec<)nd place, I shall consider the char- acter of its evidence, and what, under different relations, are the different degrees of its authority ; and, in the last place, I shall state what, and of what nature, are the more general ])hffinomena which it reveals. Having terminated these, I shall then descen consciousness, or silently confess its authority. But admitting :tll this, I am still bold enough to maintain, that consciousness affords not merely the only revelation, and only criterion of philosophy, but that this revelation is naturally clear, — this criterion, in itself^ unerring. The history of philosophy, like the history of theology, IS only, it is too true, the history of variations, and we must admit of the book of consciousness what a great Calvinist divine ^ bitterly confessed of the book of Scri|)ture, — " Hie liber est in quo qiuerlt sua doKinatii quisque; Invenit et paritcr doi^nuita quisque sua." In regard, however, to either revelation, it can be shown that the source of this divei'.sity is not in the book, but Cause of variation • .i ^ i -re •^^ i. ii t>m i ^ HI the reader. It men Avill go to the I^ible, not in pliilosopliv. . . to ask of it what they shall believe, but to find in it what they believe already, the standard of unity and truth becomes in human hands only a Lesbian rule.- And if philoso- phers, in place of evolving their doctrines out of consciousne.ss, resort to consciousness only when they are able to quote its authority in confirmation of their }>reconceived opinions, philoso])hical sy.s- tems, like the sandals of Theramenes, ' may fit any feet, but cm never })reteud to represent the immutability of nature. And that philosojdiers have been, for the most part, guilty of this, it is not extremely dithcult to show. They have seldom or never taken the facts of consciousness, the Avliole facts of consciousness, and nothing but the facts of consciousness. They have either overlooked, or rejected, or interj)olated. Before we are entitled to accuse consciousness of being a false, or vacillating, or ill-informed Avitness, — we are Wearebonndtoin- ^^^^^^^^ ^^.^^ ^^ ^jj^ ^^^ ^^^^^ whether there be p- ^irau(J)OTcpiC.'(if ofl -rfi irpoaipftrn rfit iroA- ^(TTov aApiaroi Kcu & KUfciv ^arii'. uiffirfp Ka) trtias, ^irtKA-f)^ Kibnavos. I'lntarrh. Si 'TIS AfrriSiaj niKoSo/nrjs 6 /.wKi^Oivoi xavuii'' mif. \ii\. I ]i. ~>l't •i4 186 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XV, an infallible standard of certainty and truth, and if philosophers have despised or neglected these, — then, must we remove the reproach fi'om the instrument, and affix it to those blundering work- men wlio have not known how to handle and apply it. In attempt- ing to vindicate the veracity and perspicuity of this, the natural, revelation of our mental being, I shall, therefore, first, endeavor to enumerate and explain the general rules by which we must be governed in applying consciousness as a mean of internal ob- servation, and thereafter show how the variations and contradic- tions of philosophy have all arisen from the violation of one or more of these laws. If I accomplish this at present but imper- fectly, T may at least plead in excuse, that the task I undertake is one that has not been previously attempted. I, therefore, re- quest that you will view what I am to state to you on this subject rather as the outline of a course of reasoning, than as anything pretending to finished argument. In attempting a scientific deduction of the philosophy of mind from the data of consciousness, there are, in all, Three grand Law.«, -r- t ^• , , i . ■■ ^ t under which consci- '^ ^ generalize correctly, three laws which afford ou.sness can be legiti- the exclusive Conditions of psychological legiti- mately applied to the niacy. These laws, or regulative conditions, are ■consideration of its m? • -i j^ ^ ^ ^i .1 seli-evident, and yet they seem never to hilve own phanomena. •' •' been clearly proposed to themselves by philoso- phers, — in philosophical speculation, they have certainly never been adequately obeyed. The First of these rules is, — That no fact be assumed as a fact of consciousness but what is ultimate and 1. ThelawofParci- ^-^^ rpj^j^ j ^^^^^j^ ^.^j^ ^j^^ j.^^^, of Parci- mony. mony. The Second, — that which I would style the law of Integrity, is — That the whole facts of consciousness be taken 2. The law of integ- A\ithout reserve or hesitation, whether given as fity. . ^ ■ l constituent, or as regulative data. The Third is, — That nothing but the facts of consciousness be taken, or, if inferences of reasoning be admitted, monv * *^ ° ^^' that these at least be recognized a.s legitimate only as deduced from, and in subordination to, the immediate data of consciousness, and every position rejected as illegitimate, which is contradictory of these. This I would call the law of Harmony. » I shall consider these in their order. I, The first law, that of Parcimony, is, — That no fact be assumed Lect. XV. METAPHYSICS. 187 as :i foct of consciousness but what is ultimate and simple. What is a fact of consciousness ? This question of all I. The law of Parci- , . . j ^- i ^ jjj^, others requu-es a precise and articulate answer, Fact of conscious- but I have not found it adequately answererinci])le ; looking from it ns the first constituent of all intellectual combination, we call it a primary ])rinciplc. A fact of consciousness is, thus, a simple, and, as we regard it, either an ultimate, or a ])rimary, datum of intelligence. It obtains also various denominations; sometimes it is called an (i J o'iori pri Hciple,iio\notiineii II ^fimdaine7itcil law of mind, sometimes a transcemlental condition, of thought,^ etc., etc. But, in the second place, this, its character of ultimate priority, supposes its character of necessitv. It must be 2. Necessarv. . . .... t /■ * i • imp()ssa)le not to tniiiK it. In tact, by its neces- sity alone can we recognize it as an original datum of intelligence, .'Mid distin<;uish it tiom aiiv mere result of ijencralization and custom. In the third place, this fact, as ultimate, is also given to us with a mere belief of its reality; in otlu-r wonls, consciousness reveals that it is, but not why or lunv it is. This is evident. Were this 1 See Rri,rs Workf, ji. T'Vi rt Krtj. — Kl». 188 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XV. fact given us, not only with a belief, but with a knowledge of how or Avhy it is, in that case it w^oulcl be a derivative beiief'oritTrJaUm'^^ ^^^ '^^^ ^ primary datum. For that wlicreby we were thus enabled to comprehend its how and why, — in other words, the reason of its existence, — this would be relatively prior, and to it or to its antecedent must we ascend, until we arrive at that primary fact, in which we must at last believe, — which we must take upon trust, but which we could not compre- hend, that is, think under a higher notion. A fact of consciousness is thus, — that whose existence is. given and guaranteed by an original and necessary belief But there is an important distinction to be here made, which has not only been overlooked by all philosophers, but has led some of the most distinguished into no inconsiderable errors. The facts of consciousness are to be considered in two points of view ; cither as evidencing their own ideal or The facts of con- phaenomenal existence, or as evidencing the «ciousness to be con- .... , ° sidered in two points Objective existence of something else beyond of view; either as them.^ A belief in the former is not identical evidencing their own .^, i t /> • ^i i mi • . iikni existence, or With a belief lu tlic latter. Ihe one cannot, the the objective existence Other may possibly be refused. In the case of a of something beyond •. iiiiii^i.r> iiigjjj common witness, we cannot doubt the fact of his personal reality, nor the fact of his testi- mony as emitted, — but we can always doubt the truth of that which his testimony avers. So it is with con- ow ar ou is sciousness. We cannot possibly refuse the fact possible in regard to _ _ . a fact of Conscious- of its evidence as given, but we may hesitate to ness. Illustrated in admit that bcyond itself of which it assures us. the^ case of Percep- j ^^^^^y ^^^^j.^-^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ .^^^ example. In the act of External Percej)tion, consciousness gives as a conjunct fact, the existence of Me or Self as perceiving, and the existence of something different from Me or Self as perceived. Now the reality of this, as a subjective datum, — as an ideal phasnomenon, it is absolutely impossible to doubt without doubting the existence of consciousness, for consciousness is itself this fact ; and to doubt the existence of consciousness is absolutely impossible ; for as such a doubt could not exist, except in and through consciousness, it Avould, consequently, annihilate itself We should doubt that we doubted. As contained, — as given, in an act of consciousness, the contrast of mind knowing and matteii known cannot be denied. But the wliole phsenomenon as given in consciousness may be 1 See Re/rf'i IVbri.v. Note A. p. 743, tt sfy. — Ed. Lect. XV. METAPHYSICS. 189 admitted, and yet its inference disputed. It may be said, conscioiis- ness oives the mental subject as perceiving an external object, con- tradistinguished tioni it as perceived; all this we do not, and cannot, deny. But consciousness is only a phajuomenon ; the ■contrast between tlie subject and object may be only a))parent, not real ; the object given as an external reality, may only be a mental representation, wliich the mind is, by an unknown law, determined unconsciously to produce, and to mistake for something different fi-om itself. All this may be said and believed, without self-contradiction, — nay, all tliis has, by the immense majority of modern philosophers, been actually said and believed. In like manner, in an act of Memory consciousness connects a present existence Avith a past. I cannot deny In the case of Mem- ^i >. i i v j • *i the actual ))hrenomenon, because my denial would be suicidal, but I can, without self-contra- 192 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XV, The violation of this second rule is, in general, connected with a violation of the third, and we shall accordingly iii. The Law of illustrate them together. The third is, — That *'^'"*'"^" nothino- but the facts of consciousness be taken, or if inferences of reasoning be admitted, that these at least be recognized as legit-mate only as deduced from, and only in subordi- nation to, the immediate data of consciousness, and thiit every position be rejected as illegitimate which is contradictory to these. The truth and necessity of this rvde are not less evident than the truth and necessity of the preceding. Philoso- These illustrated in ^^^ j^ ^^^i^, ^ Systematic evolution of the con- conjuuctiou. ^^^^^ ^^ consciousness, by the instrumentality of consciousness ; it, therefore, necessarily supposes, in both respects, the veracity of consciousness. But, though this be too evident to admit of doubt, and though no philosopher has ever openly throAvn off alle- How Skepticism ari- oiance to the authority of consciousness, we ses out of partial dog- ^ nevertheless, that its testimony has been matic systems. iim., , i v i -i silently overlooked, and systems established upon principles in direct hostility to the primary data of intelli- gence. It is only such a violation of the integrity of consciousness, by the dogmatist, that affords, to the skeptic, the foundation on which he can establish his proof of the nullity of philosophy. The skeptic cannot assail the trutli of the facts of consciousness in themselves. In attempting this he would run at once into self-con- tradiction. In the first ])lace, he would enact the part of a dogma- tist, — that is, he would positively, dogmatically, establish his doubt. In the second, waiving this, how can he accomplish what he thus proposes? For why? He must attack consciousness either from a higher ground, or from consciousness itself Higher gi-ound than consciousness there is none ; he must, therefore, inval- idate the facts of consciousness from the grovmd of consciousness itself On this ground, he cannot, as we have seen, deny the focts of consciousness as given ; he can only attempt to invalidate their testimony. But this again can be done only by showing that con- sciousness tells different tales, — that its evidence is contradictory, — that its data are repugnant. But this no skeptic has ever yet been able to do. Neither does the skeptic or negative philosopher himself assume his princi})les ; he only accepts those on which the dogmatist or positive philosopher attempts to establish his doctrine ; and this doctrine he reduces to zero, by showing that its principles are either mutually repugnant, or repugnant to f icts of conscious- ness, on which, though it may not expressly found, still, as facts of Lect. XV. METAPHYSICS. 193 consciousness, it cannot refuse to recognize without denying the possibility of ])liiloso|)hy in general. I shall illustrate the violation of this rule by examples taken from the writings of the late ingenious Dr. Thomas Violations of the Brown. — I must, however, premise that this Second and Ttiircllaws , ., , r> /• ^ • . , . , . . ,, ... ,. ,, philosopher, so tar trom being singular m his in the writings of Dr. i i ' » & • Thomas Browu. easy Way of ajipealing to, or overlooking, the facts of consciousness, as he finds them conve- nient or inconvenient for his pur))ose, suj)plies only a specimen of the too ordinary style of philosophizing. Now, i'.rown's doctrine of y^^ ,^„st know, that Dr. Biowu maintains the External rerception * ■, ^ . ^ ,, ,., , , , . ^ common doctrine ot the i)hiosoi) hers, t lat Ave involve.s an mcousist- ' ' ' '^""'- " '^ ency. have no immediate knowledge of anything be- yond the states or modifications of our own minds, — tliat we are only conscious of the ego, — the non-ego, as known, being only a modification of self, which mankind at large are illu- sively determined to view as external and different from self This doctrine is contradictory of the fact to which consciousness testifies. — that the object of which we are conscious in percej)tion, is the external reality as existing, and not merely its representation in the percipient mind. That this is the fact testified to by consciousness, and believed by the common sense of mankind, is admitted even by those philoso])hers who reject the truth of the testimony and the belief It is of no consequence to us at present what are the grounds on which the ])rinciple is founded, that the mind can have no knowledge of aught besides itself; it is sufficient to observe that, this jirinciple being contradictory of the testimony of con- sciousness. Dr. Brown, by adopting it, virtually accuses conscious- ness of falsehood. But if consciousness be false in its testimony to one fact, Ave can have no confidence in its testimony to any other; and Brown, having himself belied the veracity of consciousness, cannot, therefore, again a]»peal to this A^ei'acity as to a credible au- thority. But he is not thus consistent. Although he does nf" t lie iiiiiteriMl universe. — he admits tliis to l)e iuA'incible. JIow, tlien, i.s tins conclusion avoided"::' Simply by appealing to the universal belief of mankinh;/ nf the Jfinmtn Mini/, leofure fiiithcr ]inr,>!Ut-«I in Uie -Author's Dheu.Sfinn\ xxviii., p. ."iO, 2d edition. See this ar;:i"'i"it |'. ii-. — Ki>. •2.) 194 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XV, For, in tlie first place, having already virtually given up, or rather positively rejected, the testimony of consciousness, when conscious- ness deposed to our immediate knowledge of external things, — how can he even found upon the veracity of that mendacious prin- ciple, when bearing evidence to the unknown existence of external things ? I cannot but believe that the material reality exists ; therefore, it does exist, for consciousness does not deceive us, — this reasoning Dr. Brown employs when defending his assertion of an outer world. I cannot but believe that the material reality is the object immediately known in perception ; therefore, it is immedi- ately known, for consciousness does not deceive us, — this reasoning Dr. Brown rejects when establishing the foundation of his system. In the one case, he maintains, — this belief, because ii-resistible, is true ; in the other case he maintains, — this belief, though irresist- ible, is false. Consciousness is veracious in the former belief, men- dacious in the latter. I approbate the one, I reprobate the other. The inconsistency of this is apparent. It becomes more palpable when we consider, in the second place, that the belief which Dr. Brown assumes as true rests on — is, in fact, only the reflex of — the belief which he repudiates as false. Why do mankind believe in the existence of an outer world ? They do not believe in it as in something unknown ; but, on the contrary, they believe it to ■exist, only because they believe that they immediately know it to exist. The former belief is only as it is founded on the latter. Of all absurdities, therefore, the greatest is to assert, — on the one hand, that consciousness deceives us in the belief that we know any material object to exist, and, on the other, that the material object exists, because, though on false grounds, we believe it to exist. I may give you another instance, from the same author, of the Avild work that the aj)plication of this rule The .ame is t.ue of ,,^.,],es, among philosophical systems not legiti- Brown-s pnxif (.four ' ,^. , , -r^ t^ * •, , Personal idciititv. matcly established. Dr. Brown, Avitti other I)liilosophers, rests the proof of our Personal Identity, and of our Mental Individuality, on the ground of beliefs, which, as "intuitive, universal, immediate, and irresistible," he, not unjustly, regards as the "internal and never-ceasing voice of our Creator, — revelations from on high, omnipotent [and veracious] as their Author.^ To him this argument is, however, incompetent, as contradictory. What we know of self or person, we know only as a fact of con 1 Philosophy of the Jiianan Mind, lecture xiji , p. 269, 2d edition, also Sir W. Hamiltoali Zh'srusnions, ]). 06. — Kd. Lect. XV. METAPHYSICS. 195 ficiousness. In our perceptive consciousness, there is revealed, in contrast to each, a self and a not-self. This contrast is either true or false. If true, then am I conscious of an object different from mc. — ■ that is, I have an immediate perception of the^ external realitv. If false, then am I not conscious of anything different from me, but what I am constrained to regard as not-me is only a modification of me, which, by an illusion of my nature, I mistake, and must mis- take, for something difierent from me. Now, will it be credited that Dr. Brown — and be it remembered that 1 adduce him only as the representative of a great majority of philosophers — affirms or denies, just as he finds it convenient or inconvenient, this fact, — this distinction of consciousness? In his doctrine of perception, he explicitly denies its truth, in denying that mind is conscious of aught beyond itself But, in other parts of his philosophy, this false fact, this illusive distinction, and the deceitful belief founded thereupon, are appealed to, (I quote his expres- sions,) as "revelations from on high, — as the never-ceasing voice of our Creator," etc. Thus, on the veracity of this mendacious belief, Dr. Brown estab- lishes his proof of our ]iersonal identity. Touching the object of perception, when its evidence is inconvenient, this belief is quietly passed over, as incompetent to distinguish not-self from self; in the question regarding our personal identity, where its testimony is convenient, it is clamorously cited as an insj)ired witness, exclu- sively com]»etent to distinguish self from not-self Yet why, if, in the one case, it mistook self for not-self, it may not, in the other, mistake not-self for self, would aj)pear a problem not of the easiest solution. The same belief, with the same inconsistency, is called in to jirove the Individuality of mind, ^ But if we are falla- Anrt of our Individ- • i i i • i • x* ciouslv deternuned, in our perceptive conscious- ness, to regard mind both as mind and as matter. — for, on Brown's hypothesis, in percejttion, the object ])erceived is only a mode of the percipient subject, — if, I say, in this act, I must view what is sup)>os(Ml om- and indivisible, as plural, and ditfercnl, and opposed, — Imw is it jiossible to appeal to the authority of a testimony so treacherons as consciousness for an evidence of the real sinqilicity of the thinking principle? How, says the materialist to Brown, — how can you ap]»eal against me to the testimony of consciousness, which yoii yourself reject when against your own opinions, and how can you, on the authority of that testimony, 1 Lecturi' xii. voi. i. p. 941, 2d edition. — Ki). 196 METAPHYSICS. Legt. XV maintain the unity of self to be more than an ilhisive appearance, when self and not-self, as known to consciousness, are, on your own hypothesis, confessedly only modifications of the same percipient subject? If, on yoijr doctiine, consciousness can split what you hold to be one and indivisible into two, not only different but opposed, exisiences, — what absurdity is there, on mine, that con- sciousness should exhibit as phaenomenally one, Avhat we both hold to be really manifold '? If you give the lie to consciousness in favor of your hyi)othesis, you can have no reasonable objection that I should give it the lie in favor of mine. If you can maintain that not-self is only an illusive phaenomenon, — l>eing, in fact, only self in disguise ; I may also maintain, a contra^ that self itself is only an illusive phtenomenon, — and that the apparent unity of the ego is. only the result of an oi-ganic harmony 6f action between the parti- cles of matter. From these examples, the truth of the position I maintain is man- ifest, — that a fact of consciousness can only be The absolute and rejected On the supposition of falsity, and that, universal veracity of ^j^^ falsity of ouc fact of cousciousuess being ad- consciousness must be .,, ■, n ■< o , n maintained mittcd, the truth of no other fact oi conscious- ness can be maintnined. The legal brocard,. Fahus in vuo, falsus in omnibus^ is a rule not more applicable to other witnesses than to consciousness. Thus, every system of phi- losophy which implies the negation of any fact of consciousness, is not only necessarily unable, without self-contradiction, to establish its own truth by any appeal to consciousness ; it is also unable, with- out self-contradiction, to appeal to consciousness against the fsilse- hood of any other system. If the absolute and universal veracity of consciousness be once surrendered, every system is equally true, or rather all are equally false ; philosophy is impossible, for it has now no instrument by which truth cm be discovered, — no stand- ard by which it can be tried ; the root of our nature is a lie. But though it is thus manifestly the common interest of every scheme of philosophy to preserve intact the integrity of consciousness, almost every scheme of philosophy is only another mode in which this integrity has been violated. If, therefore, I am able to prove the fiict of this various violation, and to show that the facts of conscious- ness have ne\er, or hardly ever, been fiiirly evolved, it will follow, as I said, that no reproach can be justly addressed to consciousness as an ill-informed, or vacillating, or ])C'rfidious witness, but to those only Avho were too pi'oud, or too negligent, to accept its testimony, to employ its materials, and to obey its laws. And on this suppo* Lect. XV. METAPHYSICS. 197 sition, so far sliould we be from despairing of the future advance of philosopJiy from the experience of its jjast wanderings, that we ought, on the contrary, to anticipate for it a steady progress, the moment that philosophers can be persuaded to look to consciousness, ai»d to consciousness alone, for their materials and their rules. LECTURE XVI. CONSCIOUSNESS, — VIOLATIONS OF ITS AUTHORITY. On the principle, which no one has yet been found bold enough formally to deny, and which, indeed, requires Consciausness, the Only to be understood to be acknowledged, — first and generative namely, that as all philosophy is evolved from principJe of Philoso- ." .1 , ,i /» jj consciousness, so, on the truth oi consciousness, the possibility of all philosophy is dependent, — it is manifest, at once and without further reasoning, that no philo- sophical theory can pretend to truth except that single theory which comprehends and develops the fact of consciousness on which it founds, without retrenchment, distortion, or addition. Were a phi- losophical system to pretend that it culls out all that is correct in a fact of consciousness, and rejects only what is eiToneous, — what would be the inevitable result? In the first place, this system admits, and must admit, that it is wholly dependent on conscious- ness for its constituent elements, and for the rules by which these are selected and arranged, — in short, that it is wholly dependent on consciousness for its knowledge of true and false. But, in the second place, it pretends to select a part, and to reject a part, of a fact given and guaranteed by consciousness. Now, by what crite- rion, by what standard, can it discriminate the true from the false in this fact ? This criterion must be either consciousness itself, or an instrument different from consciousness. If it be an instrument different from consciousness, what is it ? No such instrument has ever yet been named — has ever yet been heard of. If it exist, and if it enable us to criticize the data of consciousness, it must be a higher source of knowledge than consciousness, and thus it will replace consciousness as the first and generative principle of philos- ophy. But of any principle of this character, different from con- sciousness, philosophy is yet in ignorance. It remains unenonnced and unknown. It may therefore, be safely assumed not to be. The standard, tlierefore, by which any philosophical theory can profess Lect. XVI. METAPHYSICS. 199 to regulate its choice among the elements of any fact of conscious- ness, must be consciousness itself. Xow, mark the dilemma. The theory makes consciousness the discriminator between -svhat is true and what is false in its own testimony. But if consciousness be assumed to be a mendacious witness in certain parts of its evidence, how can it be presumed a veracious witness in others? This it cannot be. It must be held as false in all, if false in any ; and the philosophical theory which starts from this hypothesis, starts from a negation of itself in the negation of philosophy in general. Again, on the hypothesis that part of the deliverance of consciousness is true, part false, how can consciousness enable us to distinguish these? This has never yet been shown ; it is, in fact, inconceiv:d)le. But, further, how is it discovered that any part of a datum of conscious- ness is false, another true ? This can only be done if the datum involve a contradiction. But if the fixcts of consciousness be con- tradictory, then is consciousness a principle of falsehood ; and the greatest of conceivable follies would be an attempt to employ such a principle in the discovery of truth. And such an act of folly i* every philosophical theory which, departing from an admission that the data of consciousness are false, would still pretend to build out of them a system of truth. But, on the other hand, if the data «>f consciousness are not contradictory, and consciousness, therefore, not a self-convicted deceiver, how is the unapparent falsehood of its evidence to be evinced? This is manifestly impossible ; for such falsehood is not to be presumed ; and, we have previously seen, there is no higher principle by which the testimony of consciousness can be canvassed and redargued. Consciousness, therefore, is to be pre- sumed veracious ; a philosophical theory which accepts one part of the harmonious data of consciousness and rejects another, is mani- festly a mere caprice, a chimera iu>t worthy of consideration, fir less of articulate disproof It is ah initio null. I have been anxious thus again to inculcate u))on you this view in regard to the relation of Pl)iloso|»liy to Consciousness, because it contains a jueliminary refutation of all those proud and wayward systems which, though they can only pretend to represent the truth inasmuch as they fully and fairlv .levi'loi. the revelations vouch- safed to us through consciousness, still do, one and all of them, depart from a f dse or partial acceptance of these revelations them- selves; and because it affords a clear and simple criteritui of cer- tainty in oiir own attempts at jihilosophical construction. If it be correct, it sweeps away at once a world of metaphysical sjH'cula- tion ; and if it curtail the dominions of human reason, it firmly establishes our authority over what remains. 200 MKTAPH YSICS. Lkct. XVL In order still further to evince to you tlie importance of the pre- cept (namely, that we must look to conscious- violations of tlie au- 1 , • 1 r- 1 ^ . ^ ness and to consciousness alone for the mate- thonty of conscious- _ ness illustrated. I'ials and rules of philosophy), and to show ar- ticulately how all the variations of jihilosophy have been determined by its neglect, I will take those facts of con- sciousness whi(;h lie at the very root of philosophy, and with which, consequently, all philosophical systems are necessarily and primarily conversant ; and point out how, besides the one true doctrine which accepts and simi)ly states the fact as given, there are always as many various actual theories as there are various possible modes of distorting or mutilating this f ict. I shall commence with that great fact to which I have already alluded, — that The Duality of Con- • t j. i • • ^ • c we are immediatelv conscious in perception of sciousness. * '■ ' an ego and a non-ego, known togethei-, and known in contrast to each other. This is the fact of the Duality of Consciousness. It is clear and manifest. When I concentrate ni}' attention in the simplest act of perception, I return from my observation with the most irresistible conviction of two facts, or rather two branches of the same fact; — that I am, — and that something different from me exists. In this act, I •am conscious of myself as the perceiving subject, and of an external reality as the object perceived ; and I am conscious of both existences in the same indivisible moment of intuition. The knowledge of the subject does not jjrecede, nor follow, the knowledge of the object, — neither determines, neither is determined by, the other. Such is the fact of perceptitm revealed in consciousness, and as it determines mankind in general in their almost Thefactofthetesti- equal assuraucc of the reality of an external monv of conscious- t ^ /» ii • j. j? ^i • • j •. „ . , world, as of the existence of their own minds. ness in Perception al- lowed by those who Coiisciousness declares our knowledge of mate- deny its truth. i-ial qualities to be intuitive or immediate, — not representative or mediate. Nor is the fact, as given, denied even by those who disallow its truth. So clear is the deliverance, that even the philoso})hers who reject an intuitive perception, find it impossible not to admit, that their doctrine stands decidedly opposed to the voice of consciousness, — to the natural convictions of mankind. I may give you some examples of the admission of this fact, wliich it is of the utmost importance to place beyond the possibility of doftbt. I quote, of course, only from those philosophers whose systems are in contradiction of the testi- mony of consciousness, which they are forced to admit. I might quote to you confessions to this effect from Descartes, J)e Passiou' Lect. XVL metaphysics: 201 tfyus, article 23, and from Malebranche, Recherche^ liv. iii. c. 1. To these I only refer you. The following is from Berkeley, towards the conclusion of the third and last Dialogue, in which liis system of Idealism is established: — "When Ilylas is at last entirely converted, he observes to Philonous, — 'After all, tlie controversy about matter, in the strict acceptation of it, lies alto- gether between you and the ])hilosophers, whose principles, T acknowledge, ai'c not near so natural, or so agreeable to the com- mon sense of mankind, and Holy Scripture, as yours.' Philonous observes in the end, — 'That he does not jiretend to be a setter-up of new notions ; his endeavors tend only to unite, and to j)lace in a clearer light, that truth which was before shared between the vulgar and the philosophers; the former being of opinion, that those things they immediately perceive are the real things ; and the latter, that the things immediately perceived are ideas which exist only in the mind ; which two things put together do, in eftect, constitute the s(d>stance of what he advances.' And he concludes by observing, — 'That those principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pur- sued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.' " ' Here you will notice that Berkeley admits that the common be- lief of mankind is, that the things immediately perceived are not representative objects in the mind, but the external realities them- selves. Hume, in like manner, makes the same confession ; and the confession of that skeptical idealist, or skeptical nihilist, is of the utmost weight. " It seems evident that men are carried by a natural instinct or prepossession to repose faith in their senses; and that, without any reasonnig, or even almost before the use of reason, we always sui)pose an external universe, which depends not on our perception, but would exist though we and everv sensible creature were absent or annihilated. Even the animal creation are governed by a like o]>inion, and preserve this belief of external objects in all their thoughts, designs, and actions. "It seems also evident that, when men follow this blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always sui)pose the very images presented by the senses to be the external objects, and never enter- tain any suspicion that the one are notliing but reiireseutations of the other. This very table, which we see white, and which we feel liard, is believed to exist, inde]>endent of our perception, and to be something external to our mind, which jierceives it. Our presence bestows not being on it, — our absence does not annihilate it. It 1 See ReidCi Works, p. 284. — Ed. 26 202 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XV'I preserves its existence uniform and entire, independent of the situa- tion of intelligent beings, who perceive or contemplate it. " But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon de- stroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or ))erception, and that the senses are only the inlets through which these images are conveyed, without being able to j)rodu(;e any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object. The table, which Ave see, seems to diminish as we remove farther from it ; but the real table, which exists independent of us, suffers no alteration ; it Avas, therefoi-e, nothing but its image which Avas present to the mind. These are the obvious dictates of reason ; and no man Avho reflects, ever doubted that the existences Avhich Ave consider, Avhen we say, thiK house and that tree, are nothing but perceptions in the mind, and fleeting copies or representations of other existences, Avhich remain uniform and independent " Do you folloAV the instincts and propensities of nature, may they say, in assenting to the veracity of sense ? But these lead you to believe that the A-ery perception or sensible image is the external object. Do you disclaim this principle, in order to embrace a more rational opinion, that the perceptions are only representations of something external? You here de])art from your natural propen- sities and more obvious sentiments ; and yet are not able to satisfy your reason, which can ne\'er find any convincing argument from experience to prove that the perceptions are connected with any external objects."^ The fact that consciousness does testify to an immediate knoAvl- edge by mind of an object different from any modification of its own, is thus admitted even by those philosophers who still do not hesitate to deny the truth of the testimony; for to say that all men do naturally believe in such a knowledge, is only, in other Avords, to say that they believe it upon the authority of consciousness. A fact of consciousness, and a fact of the common sense of mankind, are only vaiious expressions of tlie same import. We may, therefore^ lay it doAvn as an undisputed truth, that consciousness gives, as' an ultimate fact, a primitive duality; — a knowledge of the ego in rela- tion and contrast to the non-efjo ; and a knowledire of the non-earo ill relation and contrast to the ego. The ego and non-ego are, thus, given in an original synthesis, as conjoined in the unity of knowl- 1 Essays, vol. ii. pp. 154, 155, 156, 157 (edit. tlic same thing is acknowledged by Kant, by 1788). Similar confessions are made by Hume Ficlite, by Scliellin the fact of the Dual- category, whilc of tlic toruicr, it we do not ity of Consciousness. remouiit to the sclioolmeii and the ancients. — I am only aware of a single philosopher- betbre Re: , who did not reject, at least in part, the fact as consciousness affords it. As it is always expedient to possess a precise iianic for a precise distinction, I would be inclined to denominate those who implicitly acquiesce in tlie j)rimitive diiality as Tne former culled ^^j^.^^^ j^^ ^-onsciousucss, the Xatural Realists or a^aturalists or Natural ' , t^ i- i i • i ' ■» j)y^ijj,(g Natural Dualists, and their doctrine, Natural Realism or Natural Dualism. In the 8(?cond place, the ]ihilosophers who do not accept the fact, and the whole fact, iii.iy be divided and siibili- Tlie latter, variously • i ^ • . • i i • ••! ,...,' ^ vuled into various classes by various iinncinles BUbdivided ... of distribution. The first subdivision will be taken from the total, or p.artial, 1 See the Author's Suppl. Disser. to Hei'l's John Sergeant is subsequently referred to by Works, Note C. — El). Sir W llaniiltdii, asboldingasiniilardoctriue 2 This philosopher is doubtless Peter Poiret. in a parado.xical form. See pj). 3ol. ■'Vl.'V - Er^ ft04 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XVI rejections of tlie import of the f;ict. I have previously shown you that to deny any flu't of consciousness as an actual phajnoinenon is utterly impossible. But, though necessarily admitted as a present phfenomenon, the import of this })liaenomenon, — all beyond our actual consciousness of its existence, may be denied. We are able, without self-conti-adiction, to suppose, and, consequently, to assert, that all to which the j)haenomenon of which we are conscious refers, is a deception, — that, for exam])le, the past to Avhich an act of memory refers, is only an illusion involved in our consciousness of the present, — that the unknown subject to which every phsenom- enon of which we are conscious involves a reference, has no reality beyond this reference itself, — in short, that all our knowledge of mind or matter, is only a consciousness of vari- Into Realists and i -,i r- \ i mi • i ,,.^.,. ous bundles ot baseless appearances. Ihis doc- trine, as refusing a substantial reality to the })haenomenal existence of which Ave are conscious, is called Nihil- ism ; and, consequently, philosophers, as they affirm or deny the authority of consciousness in guaranteeing a substratum or sub- stance to the manifestations of the ego and non-ego, are divided into Realists or Substantialists, and into Nihilists or Non-Substan- tialists. Of 2:)0sitive or dogmatic Nihilism there is no example in modern philoso])hy, for Oken's deduction of the universe from the original nothing,^ — the nothing being equivalent to the Absolute or God, is only the paradoxical foundation of a system of realism; and, in ancient philosophy, we know too little of the book of Gor- gias the Sophist, entitled Hepl tov fxr] 6vtoe forn.er external reality, whose existence they mamtam, of these classes, and they, of course, hold a doctrine of mediate or are subdivided accord- I'epresentative perception; and, according to the ina; to tlieir view of • t/; x- /• xi x i ^ • ^i , . . various modincations oi that doctrine, thev are the representation in , ... . perception. again subdivided into those who view, in the immediate object of perception, a representative entity present to the mind, but not a mere mental modification, and into those who hold that the immediate object is only a re])resenta- tive modification of the mind itself It is not always easy to deter- mine to which of these classes some ])hilosophers belong. To the former, or class holding the cruder hypothesis of representation, certainly belong the followers of Democritus and P^picurus, those Aristotelians who held the vulgar doctrine of sjiecies, (Aristotle himself was j)robably a natural dualist,)* and in recent times, among many others, ^lalebraiiche, Berkeley, Clarke, Newton, Abraham Tucker, etc. To these is also, but ])roblematically, to be referred Locke. To the second, or class holding the finer hyjiothesis of representation, belong, without any doubt, many of the Platonists, Leibnitz, Arnauld, Crousaz, Condillac, Kant, etc., and to this class is also probably to be refen-ed Descartes.- The philosopliical Unitarians or Monists, reject the testimony of „ . . ^,. ., , consciousness to the ultimate dualitv of tlie sul»- MonUts, .subdivided, ... ject and object in perception, but they arrive at the unity of these in different ways. Some admit the testimony of 1 Aristotle's opinion is donbtful. In (lie tlie Aulliors Notes, /iViV/'s irori-^. pp. ;JiXi, HSl!; De Anima. i. 5, he combats the theory J •/ Body. potheses which it is necessary for you to know, — hypotheses proposed in solution of the prob- lem of how intercourse of substances so opposite as mind and body could be accomplished. These hypotheses, of course, belong exclu- sively to the doctrine of Dualism, for in the Unitarian system the difficulty is resolved by the annihilation of the o])position, and the reduction of the two substances to one. The hypotheses I allude to, are known under the names, 1°, Of the sys- Four in number. , /? a • ^ j:- r\ • i /' i .^o tern of Assistance or oi Occasional Causes ; 2 , Of the Preestablished Harmony; 3°, Of the Plastic Medium ; and, 4°, Of Physical Influence. The first belongs to Descartes, De la Forge, Malebranche, and the Cartesians in general ; the second to Leibnitz and Wolf, though not universally adopted by their school; the third was an ancient opinion revived in modern times by Cudworth and Leclerc;^ the fourth is the common doctrine of the Schoolmen, and, though not explicitly enounced, that generally prevalent at present; — among modern philosophers, it has been expounded with great perspicuity by Euler."' We shall take these in their order. The hypothesis of Divine Assistance or of Occasional Causes, sets out from the apparent impossibility involved 1. Occasional Causes. . -r^ ,. /. , i • x- "^ -u *. in Dualism of any actual communication between a spiritual and a material substance, — that is, between extended and non-extended existences; and it terminates in the assertion, that the Deity, on occasion of the aifections of matter — of the motions in the bodily organism, excites in the mind correspondent thoughts and representations; and on occasion of thoughts or rep- resentations arising in the mind, that He, in like manner, produces the correspondent movements in the body. But more explicitly : — " God, according to the advocates of this scheme, governs the 1 This simile is tiaken from Kant, Kriti/c der CTioisee, vol. ii. p. 107, et seq. See also Leib- reinen Vernunft, p. 784 (edit. 1799) — Ed. nitz, Cnnsiderations sitr la Principe de Vie. Op. fra, edit. Erdmann, p. 429. — Ed. 2 Cudworth, Intellectual System of the Uni- 3 Lettres d vne Princesse d' Allemagne, part verse, b. i. c. iii § 37. Leclerc, Bibliotheque ii. let. 14, ed. Couruot. — Ed.J Lect. XVI. METAPHYSICS. ^09 universe, fincl its constituent existences, by the laws according to which He Iiivs created them ; and as the world was originally calk'<1 into being by a mere fiat of the divine will, so it owes the continu- ance of its existence from moment to moment only to the unre- mitted perseverance of the same volition. Let the sustaining energy of the divine will cease, but for an instant, and the universe lapses into nothingness. The existence of created things is thu^ exclusively maintained by a ci*eation, as it were, incessantly re- newed. God is, thus, the necessary cause of every modification of body, and of every modification of mind ; and his efficiency i^ gufticient to afford an explanation of the union and intercourse of extended and unextended substances. "External objects determine certain movements in our bodily organs of sense, and these movements are, by the nerves and ani- mal spirits, propagated to the brain. The brain does not act imme- diately and really upon the soul ; the soul has no direct cognizance of any modification of the brain ; this is impossible. It is God himself avIio, by a law which he has established, when movements are determined in the brain, produces analogous modifications in the conscious mind. In like manner, suppose the mind has a voli- tion to move the arm ; this volition is, of itself, inefficacious, bui God, in virtue of the same law, causes the answering motion in oui limb. The body is not, therefore, the real cause of the mental modifications; nor the mind the real cause of the bodily movements. Nevertheless, as the soul would not be modified without the antece- dent changes in the body, nor the body moved without the antece- dent determination of the soul, — these changes and determinations are in a certain sort necessary. But this necessity is not absolute ; it is only hypothetical or conditional. The organic changes, and the mental determinations, are nothing but simple conditions, and not real causes ; in short, they are occasions or occasional causes." ^ This doctrine of occasional causes is called, likewise, the Hypothesis of Assistance, as supposing the imtnediate cooperation or interven- tion of the Deity. It is involved in the Cartesian theory, and, therefore, belongs to Descartes ; but it was fully evolved by De la Forge, ]Malebranche, and other followers of Descartes.^ It may, however, be traced far higher. I find it first explicitly, and in all its extent, maintained in the commencement of the twelfth 1 [Laromigui'.-re Le^nn.t tie PhCosopMe, torn. la Forpe, Traitc de V Efprit > volume of Aristotle's Works, Venice, 1550. A a Systcme Nouveau de la Nature, ^13. Operu, full account of this treatise is given in Ten- ed. Erdmann, p. 127. Cf. Thcodicce, i 61, remann's Geschickte der Philosophie, vol. viii. JiiV/., p. 520. — Ed. V-SSl et seq. See AlsoDcgerando, Histoire Com- „ ,_ . ., , .. „,, .., ~ ■•• t^ ' ' S •> [Laromieuiere, Lecons, n. 2;)6-71 Troisiemt parcf, vol. iv. p. 226. — Ed. t- , • • . r^ a -c ^ ^o^ '^ ' r .„ ,, . , Edaircissement. Opera, ed. Erdmann, p. 1.34 2 Averroes, 1. c. p. 56: " Agens combus- - _ .... . -^Ed. ■~. tionis creavit nigredmem in stuppa et eoni- bustionem in partibus ejus, et posuit earn " Systcme Nouv^au de la Nature, $ 14. Tlie- combustarn et cinerem, et est Deus gloriosus odiccr, 5 62. These passages contain the sub- medianfibus angelis, aut immediate." See stance of the remarks in the text, but not the itennemann, 1. c. p. 405. — Ed. words. — Ed. Lect. XVI. METAPHYSICS. 211 ceptions and determinations would correspond to the series of movements which some of these possibh^ bodies would exe- cute; for in an infinite number of souls, and in an infinite num- ber of bodies, there would be found all possible combinations. Now, suppose that, out of a soul whose series of modifications corresponded exactly to the series of modifications which a certain body was destined to ])crf()rm, and of this body whose successive movements Avere correspondent to the successive modifications of this soul, CJod should make a man, — it is evident, that be- tween the two substances which constitute this man, there would subsist the most })erfect harmony. It is, thus, no longer neces- sary to de\ise theories to account for the reciprocal intercourse of the material and the spiritual substances. These have no com- naunication, no mutual influence. The soul passes from one state, from one perception, to another by virtue of its own nature. The body executes the series of its movements without any participatioi> or interference of the soul in these. The soul and body are like two clocks accurately regulatent tliis by the way. The second hypothesis in chronological order, is that of the Plas- tic Medium. It is to be traced to Plato. That Plastic Medium, ...c- ..jjiiosopher, iu illustrating the relation of the two constituents of man, says that the soul is in the body like a sailor in a shi]); that the soul employs the body as its instrument ; but that the energy, or life and sense of the body, is the manifestation of a difterent substance, — of a substance which holds a kind of intermediate existence between mind and matter. This conjecture, which Plato only obscurely hinted at, was elaborated with ))eculiar partiality by his folloAvers of the Alexandrian school, and, in their psychology, the o;(os, or vehicle of the soul, the meoi Trap- oAo/SoVrfS apx^y ^"XV^ o^dfaToi', rh utra TovTo dvriTbv ffiifia ourf; irfpifTopvfvaaf 0-x^nij.oi T( iTui/ tJ» (Twua fSiiirai' k.t.\. This passafje, as well as the simile of tlie chariot in the PhfT'lnis. \t. 21t>, were interpreted in tliis fense by the later Plntonists. See Ficinus, Theolngia Platonica, lib. xviii. c. 4: "Ex quo •equitur rationales animas tan<)uani niedias tales esse debere, ut virtute ciuidem semper separabiles sint, acta autem siut semper conjuncta?, quia familiare corpus nan- ciscunturex a'there,quod servant per immor- talitatem propriam inimortale. (|Uod Plato eiininn tum deoruni tuin animaruni voi'al iu I'hadro, veliiculuni in Tinueo.'" I'he v/i//) is more definitely expressed by AlaximusTyrius, Diss. xl. « (referred to by Stallbaum. on the Thnrruf, 1. C): Oux ^P"S xa] rhi/ fi' tF; da- AoTTj; ttKovv, iv^a d fxef Kvfifpf-nrT]s &p- Xft. OJS ^vxh cdfiaros, t) 6e vovs 6.pxfTat, iy inrh ypvxrj^ na. Cf. also Proclus. Inst. Theol. c. aOti el ser/. ; CudwoiHl, IntfUectunI Sijs- tfm, b. i. c. V. § 3. Platncr, Pliil. Aphorisnien, i. )). r)'27. — Ed. • t ."^t. Aiijiustin seems to have adopted tho ancient anil Platonic dopma that tiiaiiT (v\Tf) is incorporeal ( Off w^oTos.) He n-jianled >nnt- ter as "quiddam inter formatum ct nihil, neo formatum nee nihil, informe prop« nihil." Con/fssioiis. lib. xii. c. vi. — Ed. 214 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XVI Christian fathers, was inclined, and, in modern times, it has been revived and modified by Gassendi,^ Cudworth,^ and Le Clerc.^ Descartes agrees with the Platonists in opposition to the Aristote- lians, that the soul is not the substantial form Occasional Causes, ^^ ^j^^ ^^^ ^^^ . . ^^^j^g^tg^ ^-^^^ •,. ^, ^^ ^ third. ... snigle ponit in the brain — viz., the pineal gland. The pineal gland, he supposes, is the central j^oint at which the organic movements of the body terminate, when conveying to the mind the determinations to A'oluntary motion.'' But Descartes did not allow, like the Platonists, any intermediate or connecting sub- stance. The nature of the connection he himself does not very explicitly state ; — but his disciples have evolved the hypothesis, already explained, of Occasional Causes, in which God is the con- necting principle, — an hypothesis at least implicitly contained in liis philosophy.'' finally, Leibnitz and Wolf agree with the Cartesians, that there is no real, but only an apparent intercourse I'reestablished Har- i, .-i ii^i rn i-^i- between mmd and body. lo explam this mouy, fourth. , ■' '■ apj^arent intercourse, they do not, however, resort to the continual assistance or interposition of the Deity, but have recourse to the supposition of a harmony between mind and body, established before the creation of either." All these theories are unphilosoj)hical, because th-ey all attempt to establish something beyond the sphere of obser- hi*^^h^'T *^*^"" vation, and, consequently, beyond the sphere of genuine philosophy ; and because they are either, like the Cartesian and Leibnitzian theories, contradictions of the fact of consciousness ; or, like the two other hypotheses, at variance with the fact whicli they suppose. What St. Austin so admirably says of the substance, either of mind or of body, — " Materiam spiritumque cognoscendo ignorari et ignorando cognosci,"' — I would exhort you to adopt as your opinion in regard to the irtiion of these two existences. In short, in the words of Pascal,® " Man is to himself the mightiest prodigy of nature ; for he is unable to conceive Avhat is body, still less what is mind, but least of all is he able to conceive how a body can be united to a mind ; yet this is his jjvoper 1 Gassendi, in his /ViJ/s/ca, divides: the liu- * De Pa.'!sio7iibusAnima, art. 31,33. De Horn- man soul into two parts, the one rational and inf, art. 63. — Ed. incorporeal, the other corporeal, including ., See above, p. 209, note 1. — Ed. the nutritive and sensitive faculties. The lat- fi [On these hypotheses in general, see Zed- ler's Lrxicon, v. Seele, p. 98 et seq ] ter he regards as the medium of connection between the rational soul and the body. See Pp«ro, vol. ii. p. 256, 1658. — Ed. " Confessions, xii. 5. See am?, p. 98. — Ed. 2 See above, p. 208, note 1. — Ed. 8 Pensees, partie i. art. vi.. 26. Vol. ii. p > See above p. 208, note 1. — Ed. 74, edit. Faugere. — Ed. Lect. XVI. METAPHYSICS. 215 being." A contented ignorance is, indeed, wiser than a presump- tuous knowledge ; but this is a lesson which seems the last that philosophers are willing to learn. In the words of one of the acutest of modern thinkers^ — " Magna inirao maxima pars sapientiae est, quaedam aequo animo nescire velle." 1 JaliiM Cxiiar Scaliger. The passage is quoted more correctly in the Author's Dueu»- Motu,^. 640.— Ed. 1 LECTURE XVII. CONSCIOUSNESS, — GENERAL PH^.NOMENA, — ARE WE ALWAYS CONSCIOUSLY ACTIVE?- The second General Fact of Consciousness which we shall con- sider, and out of which several questions of great Activity and Passiv- interest arise, is the fact, or coirelative facts, of ity of Mind. , ... ,,-» ... />-»r*i the Activity and Passivity oi Mind. There is no pure activity, no pure passivity in creation. All things in the universe of nature are reciprocally in a No pure activity or ^^^^^ ^^ continual action and counter-action ; passivitv in creation. • t • ^ /~^ ^ they are always active and passive at once, (jod alone must be thought of as a being active without any mixture of passivity, as his activity is subjected to no limitation. But precisely because it is unlimited, is it for us wholly incomprehensible. Activity and passivity are not, therefore, in the manifestations of mind, distinct and independent phgenomena. Activity and Passiv- This is a great, though a common ei-ror. They ity always conjoined in ^^^ alwavs conjoined. There is no operation of the manifestations of .,,".,." , ,. rf ^' i.* -l . , mmd which is i)urelv active ; no anection which mind. I « ' is purely passive. In every mental modification action and passion are the two necessary elements or factors of which it is composed. But though both are always present, each is not, however, always present in equal quantity. Sometimes the one constituent preponderates, sometimes the other; and it is from the preponderance of the active element in some modifications, of the passive element in others, that we distinguish these modifica- tions by different names, and consider them as activities or passiv- ities according as they approximate to one or other of the two factors. Thus faculty^ operatio)!^ energy^ are words that we employ to designate the manifestations in which activity is predominant. Faculty denotes an active poAvcr ; mtion, operation^ energy^ denote its present exertion. On the other hand, capacity expresses a pas- sive power ; affection^ jx/ssio/i, express a present suffering. The terms mode, modification, state, may be used indifferently to signify Lect. XVII. METAPHYSICS. 217 both phajnomena ; but it must be acknowledged that these, especially the word state., are now closely associated with the passivity of mind, which they, therefore, tend rather to suggest. The passivity of mind is expressed by another term, receptimty; for passivity is only the condition, the necessary antecedent of activity, only the property possessed by the mind of standing in relation to certain foreign causes, — of receiving from them impressions, determinations to act. It is to be observed, that we are never directly conscious of pas- sivity. Consciousness only commences with, is We are never directly ^^j cognizant of, the reiiction consequent u})on conscious of passivity. .' ^ ^ ^ i i . the foreign deterrnniation to act, and this reac- tion is not itself passive. In so far, therefore, as we are conscious, we are active ; wliethei- there may be a mental activity of which we are not conscious, is another question.' There are certain arduous problems connected with the activity of mind, which will be more appropriately considered in a subse- (pient ])art of the course, when we come to speak of the Inferences fi-om the Ph?enomenology of Mind, or of Metai)hysics Proper. At present, I shall only treat of those questions Avhich are conversant about the immediate ])lu'enomena of activity. Of these, the first that I shall consider is one of considerable interest, and which, though variously determined by different ])liil()Sophers, I he quectioii, Are j^^g j^^^. gggj^^ ^q ]jp ^eyoud the Sphere of obser- we always coiiscioush- . tut i • tt'-i i active? raised vatiou. I allude to the question, \\ Iiether we are alwpvs consciouslv active '? It is evident that this question is not convertible with llie question. Have we always a memory of our conscious- DistinguisLed from j^ggg 9 _ for the latter i)roblem must be at once otliei- <|iiesti()iis. . r • i answered in the negative. It is also evident, tiiat we must exclude the consideration of those states in \\liich the mind is apparently without conscioiv^ness, but in regard to which, in reality, we can obtain no information from experiment^ Concerning tliese we must be contented to remain in ignorance; at leaSt oidy to extend to them the analogical conclusions wliich our obsci-vations on those within the sphere of exj>enment warrant us inferring. Our question, as one of possible solulioii, must, tliiTctore, be limited to the states of sleep and soniii.iiiibiilisin. to the (.'xclusion of those states of iiisensibilitv wliicli mh' (•.iniiot icniiiiialc suddenly at will. It is hardlv necessary to observe, that witli the nature of sleep and soinnambulisin as ))svchological jiluenonu'iia, w c have at ]>resent noth- ing to . 28 218 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XVIl Whether the mind, in as far as we can make it matter of observa- tion, is always in a state of conscious activity, ireatment of the rpj^^ general problem in rei^ard to the ceaseless tc -^ i- says the lormer, " couitatione et motii vacuus esse gustm. •' ' ° potest."^ "Ad quid menti," says the latter, " priBceptura est, ut se ipsam cognoscat, nisi ut semper vivat, et sem- per sit in actu."- The question, however, obtained its principal imi )oitance in the philosoi)hy of Descartes. That Descartes. i i •/ philosopher made the essence, the very existence, of the soul to consist in actual thouglit,^ under which he included even the desires and feelings ; and thought he defined all of which we are conscious.'' The assertion, therefore, of Descartes, that the mind always thinks, is, in his employment of language, tantamount to the assertion that the mind is always conscious. That the mind is always conscious, though a fundamental position of the Cartesian doctrine, was rather assumed than proved by an appeal to fact and exj^erience. All is theoretical in Descartes; all is theoretical in his disciples. Even Malebranche assumes our con- sciousness in sleep, and explains our oblivion Malebranche. . * . only by a mechanical hypothesis.^ It was, there- fore, easy for Locke to deny the truth of the Cartesian opinion, and to give a strong semblance of probability to his oAvn doctrine by its apparent conformity with the phsenomena. Omitting a good deal of what is either irrelevant 1 Br Divinationf, ii. 6-2 : '• Katuram earn ut se ipi^ain cogitet, et secundum naturam dico, qua nunquam animus iiisisteus a^ita- suam vivat." Uut in the Df Anima et rju-^ tione, fit motu esRe vacuus potest."' — Ed. Origine, lib. iv. c. vi. § 7, t. x. p. 391, (edit. 2 Eugenio.s, 'VuxoAoyia, p. 2!). — [Book iii. lien.) occurs the following explicit state- of his ^Totxf'ia t^s MfTapvffiKTJs, (edit. meat: " Sicut motus non cessat in cordf-. 1805). The reference in Eugenios is to De unde se pulsus diffundit usque further assured th:m experience informs us. For to say that actual thinking is essential to the soul, and inseparable from it, is to beg what is in question, and not to ])rovc it by reason ; which is necessary to be done if it be not a self-evident proposition. But whether this, 'that tlu' soul always thinks,' be a self-evident )>roposition, that everybody assents to at first hearing, I aj>)K':il to mimkind. It is doubted whetlier I thought all last night or no; the (|uesti(>n being about a matter of fact, it is begging it to bring :is ;i proof for it an hypothesis which is the very thing in dispute; by w Iiicli way one may prove anything; and it is but sujiposing that all watches, whilst the b:d.iiu-e beats, tliink ; and it is sufiiciently proved, Mud past doubt, that my watch tho\ight all last night. But he th:it would not deceive himself, ought to I EfMtij. book ii. rliiip. i . »^ !>. li». 14 •! <»'/. 220 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XVIi build his liyi>othesis on matter of fact, and make it ont by sensible experience, and not presume on matter of fact, because of his hypothesis ; that is, because he supposes it to be so ; which way of proving amounts to this, that I must necessarily think all last night because another supposes I always think, though I myself cannot perceive that I always do so." ...."' It AviU perhaps be said that 'the soul thinks even in the soundest sleep, but the memory retains it not.' That the soul in a sleei)ing man should be this moment busy a-thinking, and the next moment in a waking man not remember nor be able to recollect one jot of all those thouofhts, is very hard to be conceived, and would need some better proof than bare assertion to make it be believed. For who can, without any more ado but being barely told so, imagine that the greatest ])art of men do, during all their lives for several hours every day, think of something which, if they were asked even in the middle of these thoughts, they could remember nothing at all of? Most men,> I think, pass a great part of their sleep without dreaming. I once knew a man that was bred a scholar and had no bad memory, who told me he had never dreamed in his life till he had that fever he was then newly recovered of, which was about the five or six and twentieth year of his age. I suj>pose the Avorld affords more such instances ; at least every one's acquaintance will furnish him with examples enough of such as pass most of their nights without dreaming." .... And again, "If they say that a man is always conscious to himself of thinking; I ask how they know it ? 'Con- sciousness is the perception of what passes in a man's own mind. Can another man perceive that I am conscious of anything, when I perceive it not myself?' No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience. Wake a man out of a sound sleep, and ask him what he was that moment thinking on. If he himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on, he must be a notable di^dner of thoughts that can assure him that he was thinking: may he not with more reason assure him he was not asleep ? This is something beyond jihilosophy ; and it cannot be less than revelation that dis- covers to another thoughts in my mind Avhen I can find none there myself; and they must nee i-- , ^ , ., work ni which he canvassed from bcijinnino: to posed by Leibnitz. ^ . end the Essay, under the same title, of the Eng- lish philosopher. He observes, in reply to the supposition that continual consciousness is an attribute of Ilim " who neither slum- bereth nor sleepeth," 'that this affords no inference that in sleep we are wholly without perception.' To the remark, "that it is diffi- cult to conceive, that a being can think and not be conscious of thought," he replies, 'that in this lies the whole knot and difficulty of the matter. But this is not insoluble.' "We must observe," he says, "that we think of a multitude of things at once, but take heed only of those thoughts that are the more prominent. Nor could it be otherwise. For were we to take heed of everything, it would be necessary to attend to an infinity of matters at the same moment, all of which make an effectual impression on the senses. Nay, I assert that there remains always something of all our past thoughts, — that none is ever entirely ettaced. Now, when we sleep without dreaming, and when stunned by a blow or other accident, there are fonned in us an affinity of small confused perce])tions." And again he remarks: "That e\en wlu'n we sleep without dreaming, there is always sonic feeble perception. Tlic act of awakening, indeed, shows this: and the more easily Ave are roused, the clearer is the ])('rcej)tion we have of what passes without, although this percep- tion is not always strong enough to cause us to awake." Now, in all this it will be observed, that Leibnitz does not pre- cisely answer the question we have mooted. He maintains that the mind is never without perception.s, but, as he holds that percep- tions e.vist without consciousness, he cannot, though lie opposes Locke, be considered as .itllnning that the mind is iicAcr without consciousness during sleep, — in short, does always dream. The doctrine of Wolf on this jioint is the same with that of his master,- .„ ,, though the N^imrtaiix J^Jssais of Leibnitz were Wolf. ^ not ))ublLshed till long afler the death of Wolf But if Leibnitz cannot be adduced as categorically asserting that 1 Lib. ii. ch. 1. — Ed. 2 Psyckologia Rationaiis, i 59. — Ed. 222 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XVH j there is no sleep without its dream, this cannot be said of Kant. Kant "^'^''^^ great thinker distinctly maintains that we always di-eam when asleep ; that to cease to dream would be to cease to live ; and that those who fancy that the^ have not dreamt have only forgotten their dream.' This is all that the manual of Anthropology, published by himself, contains upon the question ; but in a manuscript in my possession, which bears to be a work of Kant, but is probably only a compilation from notes taken at his lectures on Anthrojjology, it is further stated that we can dream more in a minute than we can act during a. day, and that the great rapidity of the train of thought in sleep, Is one i of the principal causes why we do not always recollect what we ' dream.- He elsewhere also observes that the cessation of a force to act, is tantamount to its cessation to be. Though the determination of this question is one that seems not extremely difficult, we find it dealt with by phi- The question dealt Josophcrs, On the ouc'side and the other, rather with by philosopuers i i i • i i rather by hypothesis "^X hypothesis than by experiment ; at least, we than by experiment. have, witli one partial exception, which I am soon to quote to you, no observations sufficiently accurate and detailed to warrant us in establishing more than a verv doubtful conclusion. I have myself at different times turned ray attention to the pomt, and, as far as my observa- Conclusion from ex- i- j.i ^ • i , t , , periments made bv ^'^"' ^°' ^^^>' Certainly tend to provc that, dur- the Author. i^g slccp, the mind is never either inactive or wholly unconscious of its acti^■ity. As to the objection of Locke and others, that, as we have often no recollec- tion of dreaming, we have, therefore, never I^ocke's assumption, , . . ^ . that consciousness and dreamt, it IS sufhcicnt to say that the assump- the recollection of tiou in this argument — that consciousness, and consciousness are con- the rccollection of consciousness, are converti- vertible, disproved by 11 • j- j • >^i , , . ^ the phenomena of ble — IS disproved m the most emphatic man- somnambuiism. ^cr by experience. You have all heard of the phaenomenon of somnambulism. In this re- markable state, the various mental faculties are usually in a hio-her degree of power than in the natural. The patient has recollections of what he has wholly forgotten. He speaks languages of which, when awake, he remembers not a word. If he use a vulgar dialect when out of this state, in it he employs only a correct and elegant phraseology. The imagination, the s€?hse of propriety, and the fac- 1 ^nrtro/joiog-ie, §§ 30, 36. — Ed. thropologie, edited by Starke in 1831, from 2 The substance of this passa;?e is published Kant's Lectures. See p. 164. — Ed. Sn the Menschenkunde oder Philosophische An- Lect. XVII. METAPHYSICS. 223 ulty of reasoning, are all in general exalted. ^ The bodily powers are in liigh activity, and under the complete control of the will; and, it is well known, 2)ersons in this state have frequently performed feats, of which, when out of it, they would not even have imagined the possibility. And what is even more remarkable, the difference of the faculties in the two states, seems not confined merely to a differ- ence in degree. For it happens, for example, that a person who has no ear for music when awake, shall, in his somnambulic crisis, sing with the utmost correctness and Avith full enjoyment of his perform- ance. Under this affection persons sometimes live half their life- time, alternating between the normal and abnormal states, and per- forming the ordinary functions of life indifferently in both, with this distinction, that if the patient be dull and doltish when he is said to be aAvake, he is comparatively alert and intelligent when nominally asleep. I am in possession of three works, written dur- ing the crisis by three different somnambulists. - Now it is evident that consciousness, and an exalted consciousness, must be allowed in somnambulism. This cannot possibly be denied, — but mark what follows. It is the peculiarity of somnambulisna — Consciousness with- [^ jg the differential quality by Avhich that state out memory, the char- • j. t ^- -iix- ^i ^l^ i> t . . ' IS contradistmeruished irom the state oi dream- acteristic oi somnam- _ ^ i,„iisin. iiig — tbat we have no recollection, when we awake, of what has occurred during its continu- ance. Consciousness is thus cut in two ; memory does not connect the train of consciousness in the one state with the train of consci- ousness in the other. When the ])atient again relapses into the state of somnambulism, he again remembers all that had occurred during every former alternative of that state ; but he not only remembers this, he recalls also the events of his normal existence; so that, whereas the patient in his somnnndiidic crisis, has a memory of his whole life, in his waking intervals he has a memory only of half his life. At the time of Locke, the pluenomena of somnambulism had been very little studied ; nay, so great is the Drcamiii;; tiossible ■_ .1 *. -i • ^i • ^ • j " ' Ignorance tiiat prevails m this country in reirard without iiieiiiory. ^ , ^ . . to its nature even now, thai you will find this, its distinctive character, wlidlly unnotice. Physiology, ^ 827.— F.D. 2 Of these works we have failed to discover •ay trace. — Ed. •224 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XVIL II may be true that if we recollect our visions during sleep, this recollection excludes somnambulism, but the want of memory by no nieans proves that the visions we are known by others to have li.id, were not common dreams. The pliaiuomena, indeed, do not always enable us to discriminate the two states. Somnambulism may exist in many different degrees ; the sleep-walking from which it takes its name is only one of its higher phEenomena, and one com- paratively rare. In general, the subject of this affection does not leave his bed, and it is then frequently impossible to say whether the manifestations exhibited, are the phaenomena of somnambulism or of dreaming. Talking during sleep, for example, may be a symp- tom of either, and it is often only from our general knowledge of the habits and jiredispositions of the sleeper, that we are warranted in referring this effect to the one and not to the other class of phte- nomcna. We have, however, abundant evidence to prove that for- a'etfulness is not a decisive criterion of somnambulism. Persons whom there is no reason to suspect of this affection, often manifest during sleep ihe strongest indications of dreaming, and yet, when they awaken in the morning, retain no memory of what tliey may have done or ssiid during the night. Locke's ai-gument, that be- cause we do not always remember our consciousness during sleep, we have not, therefore, been always conscious, is thus, on the ground of fact and analogy, disproved. ilut tliis is not all. We can not only show that the fact of the mind remaining conscious during sleep is pos- I hat the mind re- sible, is even probable, we can also show, by an mains conscious dur- ^- ^ a. • ^i ^ ^i • a ii , . . , articulate experience, that this actually occurs. jiig sleep established _ ^ _ •' bv experience. The following observations are the result of my personal experience, and similar experiments every one of you is competent to institute for himself In the first place, when we compose ourselves to rest, we do not always fall at once asleep, but remain for a time Results of the Au- j^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^ incipient slumber, — in a state in- thor's personal experi- . ■ -» • gmjg termediate between sleep and waking. Now, if we are gently roused from this transition-state, we find ourselves conscious of being in the commencement of a dream ; we find ourselves occupied with a train of thought, and this train we are still able to follow out to a point when it connects itself with certain actual perceptions. We can still trace iraagina tion to sense, and show how, departing from the last sensible im- ]»ressions of real objects, the fancy ju-oceeds in its work of distort- ing, falsifying, and perplexing these, in order to construct out of their ruins its own grotesque edifices. LeOT. XVII. METAPHYSI C:&.: 225 In the second place, I liave always observed, that when suddenly awakened during sleep (and to ascertain the fact I have caused myself to be roused at difterent seasons of the night), I have al- ways been able to observe that I was in the middle of a dream. The recollection of this dream was not always equally vivid. On some occasions, I was able to trace it back until the train was grad^ ually lost at a remote distance ; on others, I was hardly aware of more than one or two of the latter links of the chain ; and, some- 'times, was scarcely certain of more than the fact, that I was not awakened from an unconscious state. Why we should not always be able to recollect our dreams, it is not difficult to explain. In our waking and our sleeping states, we are placed in two worlds of thought, not only different l)ut contrasted, and contrasted both in the character and in the intensity of their representations. When T^natqhed suddenly from the twilight of our sleeping imaginations, and placed in the meridian lustre of our waking perceptions, the necessary effect of the transition is at once to eclipse or obliterate the traces of our dreams. The act itself also of rousintr us from .sleep, by abruptly interrupting the current of our thoughts, throws us into confusion, disqualifies us for a time from recollection, and before we have recovered from our consternation, what we could at first have easily discerned is fled or flying. A sudden and violent is, however, in one respect, more favorable than a gradual and spontaneous wakening to the observation of the phoenomena of sleep. For in the former case, the images presented are fresh and ])roniinent; while in the latter, before our attention is applied, the objects of observation have withdrawn darkling into the background of the soul. We may, therefore, I think, assert, in general, that wliether we recollect our dreams or not, we always dream. Something similar, indee • i • not; the probability, therefore, is, that it wakes alvvMys, It would require contradictory facts to destroy the force of this induction, which, on the contrary, every foct seems to confirm. I shall proceed to analyze some of these which appear to me curious and striking. They manifestly imply this conclusion, that the mind, during sleep, is not in a peculiar state, but that its activity is carried on precisely as when awake. " When an inhabitant of the province comes to Paris, his sleep is at first disturbed, and continually broken, by Induction of facts ^j^^ noisc of the Carriages passing under his In supijort of tliis con- . , __ , , , . Avmdow. lie soon, however, becomes accus- elusion. ' ' tomed to the turmoil, and ends by sleeping at Paris as he slept in his village. "The noise, however, remains the same, and makes an equal impression on his senses; how comes it that this noise at first hinders, and then, at length, does not hinder him from sleeping? "The state of waking presents analogous facts. Every one I Melanges, p. 318, [p. 290, second edition. — Eo.l Lect. XVII. METAPHYSICS. 227 knows that it is difficult to fix our .attention on a book, when sur- rounded by pei-sons engaged in conversation ; at length, however, we acquire this faculty. A man unaccustomed to the tunmlt of the streets of Paris is unable to think consecutively while walking througli them ; a Parisian finds no difficulty. He meditates as tran- (juilly in the midst of the crowd and bustle of men and carriages, as he could in the centre of the forest. The analogy between these facts taken from the state of waking, and the fact wliich I men tioned at the commencement, taken from the state of sleep, is so close, that the e.\i)lanation of the former should throw some light upon the latter. We shall attempt this exjilaiiation. "Attention is the voluntary application of the mind to an object. It is established, by experience, that we cannot Analysis and expia- gjye our attention to two different objects at nation of these piur- ^^^ ^^^^^ ^j^^_ Distraction (etre distrait) is the nomeiia. Attention . ^ and Distraction. removal of our attention from a matter with which we are engaged, and our bestowal of it on another which crosses lis. In distraction, attention is only diverted because it is attracted by a new perception or idea, solicit- ing it more strongly than that with which it is occupied; and this diversion diminishes exactly in proportion as the solicitation is weaker on the part of the intrusive idea. All experience proves this. Tlie more strongly attention is ai^plied to a subject, the less susceptible is it of distraction ; thus it is, that a book which awakens a lively curiosity, retains the attention captive ; a person occu])ied with a matter affecting his life, his reputation, or his fortune, is not e.'isily distracted ; he sees nothing, he understands notliing, of what }»asses around him ; we say that he is deeply ])reoccupied. In like manner, the greater our curiosity, or the more curious the things that are s])oken of arouml us, the less able are Ave to rivet our attention on the book we read. In like manner, also, if we nrr waiting in expectation of any one, the slightest noises occasion distraction, as these noises may be the signal of the approach we anticipate. All these facts tend to prove that distraction results only when the intrusive idea solicits us more strongly than that with which we are occupied. "Hence it is that the stranger in Paris cannot think in the bustle of the streets. The impressions whicli assail his eyes and eai"s on every side being for him the signs of things new or little known, when they reach his min^tient have no effect on them ; but let the patient turn him on the bed, let I.KCT. XVII. M KTA I'll YSICS. 231 him uttor ,i ni-<»;in or sigli, or let liis breathing become j)ainful ov interrupted, forthwith the attendant awakes, lixperiei.cc of those j.^wever littlo inured to the vocation, or inter- attenuaut on tlic sick. ested in the welfare of the patient. Whence comes this discrimination between the noises which deserve the at- tention of the attendant, and those which do not, if, whilst the senses are aslee]>, the mind does not remain observant, — does not act the sentinel, does not consider the sensations which the senses convey, and does not awaken the senses as it finds these sensations disquiet- ing or not ? It is by being strongly impressed, previous to going to sleej), with the duty of attending to the respiration, motions, complaints of the sufferer, that we come to awaken at all such noises, and at no others. The habitual repetition of such an impres' sion gives tliis faculty to })rofessional sick-nurses ; a lively interest in the health of the patient gives it equally to the members of his family. " It is in ))recisely the same manner that we waken at the appointed hour, when before going to sleep we have made Awaking at an ap- .^ ^^.^^^ resolution of SO doing. I have this power pointed hour. . . • • n t in perfection, but I notice that I lose it if I depend on any one calling me. In this latter case, my mind does not take the trouble of measuring the time or of listening to the clock. r»ut in the former, it is necessary that it do so, otherwise the phteno- nienon is iiie.xplicablc. p]verv one has made, or can make, this experiment ; when it fails it will be found, if I mistake not, either tiiat we have not been sufficiently preoccu{)ied with the intention, or were over-fatigued ; for when tlie senses are strongly benumbed, they convey to the mind, on the one hand, more obtuse sensations of the monitory sounds, and. on tlie other, they resist for a longer time the efforts the mind makes to awaken them, when these sounds have renc^hed it. "After a night passed in this effort, we have, in general, the recol- lection, in the morning, of liaving been constantly occupied during sleep with this thought. The miiul, therefore, watched, and, full of its resolution, awaited the moment. It is thus that when we go to bed mudi interestemus ' in one of liis letters, concern- Case of oporiims. . 1 .' , T p. , .V • ,, 1 1 i 1 mg his learned iriend Oponnus, the celebratctl ]>rofessor and ])riuter of Basle. Oporiuus was on a journey with a bookseller; and, on their road, they had fallen in with a manuscri])t. Tired with th(>ir day's travelling, — travelling was then almost exclusively ]teiforuied on horseback, — they i-ame at nightfall to their inn. They were, however, curious to ascertain the contents of their manuscript, and Oporiuus undertook the task of reading it aloud. This lie continued for some time, wlieu the bookseller found it necessary to put a question coiicerning a wonl which he had not rightly understood. It was now disc-overed that Oporiuus was asleep, and being awakened by his companion, he found that he had no recn \c^tambulntio: ifrfn»((>/if.«, lib. i. ji. i)>. Tlii' pen"!!! >o wbiin' 'Hr.llor^ Disputation's "if Mcbcrttvi H:st. ^ Oporiuus rt" ml, was tbe futtier ol'tlie iiai>-at(ir. Cn-ai. *. \ H. \.. -Wl. } ¥.'> 234 METAPHYSICS. i.Ecr. XVD. Most of you, I daresay, have known or heard of similar occurrences, and I do not quote the anecdote as anything remarkable. But, still, it is a case concurring with a thousand others to prove, 1°, That one bodily sense or function may be asleep while another is awake ; and, 2°, That the mind may be in a certain state of activity during sleep, and no memory of that activity remain after the sleep has ceased. The first is evident ; for Oporinus, while reading, must have had his eyes and the muscles of his tongue and fauces awake, thougli his ears and other senses were asleep ; and the second is no less so, for the act of reading supposed a very complex series of mental energies. I may notice, by the way, that physiologists have observed, that our bodily senses and powers do not fall asleep simultaneously, but in a certain succession. We all know that the first symptom of slumber is the relaxation of the eyelids ; whereas, hearing continues alert for a season after the power of vision has been dormant. In the case last alluded to, this order was, however, violated ; and the sight was forcibly kept awake while the hearing had lapsed into torpidity. In the case of sleep, therefore, so far is it from being proved that the mind is at any moment unconscious, that the result of observation would incliuQ us to the opposite conclusion. LECTURE XVIII. CONSCIOUSNESS, — GENERAL PHENOMENA, — IS THE MIND EVER UNCONSCIOUSLY MODIFIED? I PASS now to a question in some respects of still more proximate interest to the j)sychologist than that discussed Is the mind ever un- j^^ ^^^^ preceding Lecture; for it is one which, according as it is decided, will determine the character of our exj)lanation of many of the most important phae- noinena in the phil()Soi>hy of mind, and, in particular, the great phuiiiomena of ]\Iemory and Association. The question T refer to is. Whether the mind exerts energies, and is the subject of modifi- cations, of neither of which it is conscious. This is the most gen- eral expression of a problem which has hardly been mentioned, fai less mooted, in this country; and when it has attracted a ])assing notice, the sui)position of an unconscious action or passion of the mind, has been treated as something either unintelligible, or absurd. In Germany, on the contrary, it has not only been canva.ssed, but the alternative which the philosophers of this country have lightly considered as ridiculous, has been gravely established as a conclu- sion which the ))h<'unomena not only warrant, but enforce. The French philosojthers, for a long time, viewed the question in the same light as the British. Condillac, indeed, set the latter the example;^ but of late a revolution is apj)arent, and two recent French psychologists^ have marvellously propounded the doctrine, long and generally established in Germany, as something new and unheard of before their own assertion of the ])aradox. This (pu-stion is one not only of inqxutance, but of difficulty; 1 shall endeavor to make you understand its j)urj)ort by arguing il upon broader grounlif\- the nmiron. 8e« below, p matnti Sect ii. cli. 1. ( 4 — 1.3.— Ei). avi — Ki. 286 M E T A P JI Y S I C S . Lect. XVI 1L In the first place, it is to be reineiubered that the riches, the ,|^ possessions of our mind, are not to be nieasui-ed by its present momentary activities, but by tlie amount of its acquired liabits. I know a science, or languac^e, not merely while I make a temporary use of it, but inasmuch as I can apply it when and how I will. Thus the infinitely greater part of our spiritual treasures, lies always beyond the s])here of conscious- ness, hid in the obscure recesses of the mind. This is the first degree of latency. In regard to this, there is no difficulty, or dis- pute ; and I only take it into account in order to obviate luiscon- ception, and because it affords a transition towards the other two degrees which it conduces to illustrate. The second degree of latency exists when the mind contains cer- The second ^'^"^ Systems of knowledge, or certain habits of action, which it is wholly unconscious of pos- sessing in its ordinary state, but which are revealed to conscious- ness in certain extraordinary exaltations of its powers. The evi- dence on this point shows that the mind frequently contains whole systems of knowledge, which, though in our normal state they have faded into absolute oblivion, may, in certain almormal states, as madness, febrile delirium, somnambulism, catalepsy, etc.^ flash out into luminous consciousness, and even throw into the shade of un- consciousness those other systems bv which thev had, for a lont' period, been eclipsed, and even extinguished. For example, there are cases in which the extinct memory of whole languages was sud- denly restored, and, what is even still more rernarkable, in which the faculty Avas exhibited of accurately repeating, in known or un- known tongues, passages which were never within the grasp of conscious memory in the normal state. This degree, this plue- nomenon. of latency, is one of the most marvellous in the whole compass of philosojdiy^ and the proof of its reality will prepare us for an enlightened consideration of the third, of which the evi- dence, though not less certain, is not equally obtrusive. But, ho^\-- €ver renurkable and imj)ortant, this phienomenon has been almost wholly ncg]e(;ted by psychologists,^ and the cases which I adduce in iliuslnition of its reality have never been previously collected and applied. That in madness, in fever, in soinnanibulism, and other abnormal stajtes, the mind should betray capacities and extensive systems of knowledge, of which it was at other times wholly uncon- scious, is a fact so remarkable that if may well demand the highest evidence to establish its truth. But of such a character is the 1 These remarks were probably written be- Intellectual Powers. He collects some very curt fore the publication of Abercrombie on the "us instancps: see p, 314, 10th edition. — Ed- -LECtv XVIII. METAPHYSICS. 237 evidence which I am now to give you. Tt consists of cases reported by thd most intelligent and trustwortliy observers, — by ol>servers Avholly ignorant of each other's testimony ; and the phienomena observed were of so palpable and unambiguous a nature that they could not possibly have been mistaken or misinterpreted. The first, and least interesting, evidence 1 Evidence from cases i n i i • -i • t r c ^ . , shall adduce, is derived irom cases or mad- ofinadness. _ ' _ ness ; it is given by a celebrated American physician, Dr. Rush. "The records of the wit and cunning of madmen," says the Doc- tor, " are numerous in every country. Talents for eloquence, poetry, music, and painting, and uncommon ingenuity in several of the mechanical arts, are often evolved in this state of madness. A gentleman, whom I attended in an hos])ital in the year 1810, often delighted as well as astonished tlie patients and officers of our hospital by his displays of oratory, in preaching from n tnlAc in the hospital yard every Sunday. A female patient of mine who became insane, after ])arturition, in the year 1807, sang hymns and songs of her own composition during the latter stage of her illness,^ with a tone of voice so soft and pleasant that I hung upon it with delight every time I visited her. She had never discovered a talent for [•oetry or music, in any previous part of her life. Two instances of a talent for drawing, evolved by madness, have occurred within my knowledge. And wliere is the hospital for mad people, in which elegant and com])lctely rigged ships, and curious pieces of machinery, have not been exhibited by [jcrsons Avho never discovered the least turn for a mechanical art, previously to their derangement? Some- times we observe in mad ])eo])le an unexpected resuscitation of knowledge ; hence we hear them describe past events, and speak in ancient or modern languages, or repeat long and interesting pas- sages from books, none of which, we are sure, they were capable of recollecting in ihe natural and healthy state of their mind." ^ The second class of cases are those of fever; and the first I shall adduce is eriven on the authority of the patient irom cases of fever. ^ _ _ _ - _ ' _ himself This is ]\Ir. Flint, a very intelligent American clergymaTi. I take it fi-oin his Ilecollections oftheValh'i/ of the MUsissippi. lie was tra\ cirmg in the State of Illinois, and suffered the common lot of visitants from other climates, in being taken down with a bilious fever. "I am aware," he remarks, "that every sutlerer in this way is apt to think his own case extraordi- nary. ]\Iy physicians agreed with all who saw me that my case I Beasley, On thr Mind, p. 474. 238 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XVItt was so. As very few live to record the issue of a sickness like mine, and as you have requested me, and as I have promised, to be par- ticular, I will relate some of the circumstances of this disease. And it is in my view desirable, in the bitter agony of such diseases, that more of the symptoms, sensations and sufferings, should have been recorded than have been ; and that others in similar predicaments may know that some before them have had sufferings like theirs, and have survived them. I had had a fever before, and had risen, and been dressed every day. But in this, Avith the first day 1 was prostrated to infontine weakness, and felt, with its first attack, that it was a thing very different from what I had yet experienced. Par- oxysms of derangement occurred the third day, and this was to me a new state of mind. That state of disease in which partial de- rangement is mixed Avith a consciousness generally sound, and a sensibility preternaturally excited, I should sujjpose the most dis- tressing of all its forms. At the same time that I was unable to recognize my friends, I was informed that my memory was more than ordinarily exact and retentive, and that I repeated whole pas- sages in the different languages which I knew, with entire accuracy. I recited, without losing or misplacing a word, a passage of poetry Avhich I could not so repeat after I recovered my health." The following more curious case, is given by Lord Monboddo in his Antient Metaphysics} Case of the Com- ,, j^ ^^^^ communicated in a letter from the tesse de Laval. late Mr. Hans Stanley, a gentleman well known both to the learned and political woi-ld, who did me the honor to correspond with me upon the subject of my first volume of meta- physics. 1 will give it in the words of that gentleman. He intro- duces it, by saying, that it is an extraordinary fact in the history of mind, which he believes stands single, aiul for which he does not pretend to account; then he goes on to narrate it: 'About six-and-twenty years ago, when I was in France, I had an inti- macy in the family of the late Marechal de Montmorenci de Laval. His son, the Comte de Laval, was married to Mademoiselle de Maupeaux, the daughter of a Lieutenant-General of that name, and the niece of the late Chancellor. This gentleman was killed at the battle of Hastenbeck ; his widow survived him some years, but is since dead. " ' The following fact comes from her own mouth. She has told it me repeatedly. She was a woman of perfect veracity, and very good sense. She appealed to her servants and family for the truth. 1 Vol. ii. p. 217. Lect. XVm. METAPHYSICS. . 239 Nor did she, indeed, seem to be sensible that the matter was so extraordinary as it appeared to me. I Avrote it down at the time ; and I have the memorandum among some of my papers. " ' The Comtesse de Laval had been observed, by servants who sate up with her on account of some indisposition, to talk in her sleep a language that none of thern understood; nor were they sure, or, indeed, herself able to guess, upon the sounds being repeated to her, whether it was or was not gibberish. "'Uj)on her lying in of one of her children, she was attended by a nurse, who was of the province of Brittany, and who imme-. diately knew the meaning of what she said, it being in the idiom of the natives of that country; but she herself, when awake, did not understand a single syllable of what she had uttered in her sleep, upon its being retold her. "'She was bom in that province, and had been nursed in a family where nothing but that language was spoken ; so that, in her first infancy, she had known it, and no other ; but, when she returned to her j^arents, she had no opportunity of keeping up the use of it ; and, as I have before said, she did not understand a word of Breton when awake, though she spoke it in her sleep. " ' I need not say that the Comtesse de Laval never said or imagined that she used any words of the Breton idiom, more than were necessary to express those ideas that are within the compass of a child's knowledge of objects,' " etc. A highly interesting case is given by Mr. Coleridge in his Bio- graphia lAteraria} "It occurred," says Mr. Coleridge, "in a ase Riven y o e- Roman Catholic town in Germany, a year or two before my arrival at Gottingen, and had not then ceased to be a frequent subject of conversation. A young woman of four or five and twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a nervous fever; during which, acconling to the asseverations of all the priests and monks of the neighborhood, she became pos- sessed, and, .IS it appeared, by a very learned devil. She continued incessantly talking Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pompous tones, anable by the known fact that she was or had been a here- tic. Voltaire humorously advises the devil to decline all ac(iuaint- antni with medical men; and it would have been more to his repu- tation, if he had taken this advice in the present instance. The case had attracted the jtarticular attention of a young pliysician, and by his statement many eminent physiologists and psychologists 1 Vol. i. p. 117, (edit. 1847). 240 ^ METAPHYSICS. LeCT. XVIll visited the town, and cross-examined the case on the spot. Sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to consist of sentences, coherent and intelligible each for itself, but with little or no connection with each other. Of the Hebrew, a small j^ortion only could be traced to the Bible, the remainder seemed to be in the Rabbinical dialect. All trick or conspiracy was out of the question. Not only had the young woman ever been a harmless, simple creature; but she was evi- dently laboring under a nervous fever. In the town, in which she had been resident for many yeai's as a servant in different families, no solution presented itself. The young physician, however, de- termined to trace her past life step by step ; for the patient herself was incapable of returning a rational answer. He at length suc- ceeded in discovering the place where her pai-ents had lived : trav- elled thither, found them dead, but an uncle surviving ; and from him learned that the patient had been charitably taken by an old Protestant pastor at nine years old, and had remained with him some years, even till the old man's death. Of this pastor the uncle knew nothing, but that he was a very good man. With great difficulty, and after much search, our young medical philoso- pher discovered a niece of the pastor's who had lived with him as his housekeeper, and had inherited his effects. She remembered the girl ; related that her venerable \mcle had been too indulgent, and 'could not bear to hear the girl scolded ; that she was willing to have kept her, but that, after her patron's death, the girl herself refused to stay. Anxious inquiries were then, of course, made con- cerning the pastor's habits ; and the solution of the phaenomenon Avas so(m obtained. For it aj^peared that it had been the old man's <;ustom, for years, to walk up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen-door opened, and to read to himself, with a loud voice, out of his favorite books. A considerable number of these were still in the niece's possession. She added, that he was a very learned man, and a great Hebraist. Among the books were found a collection of Rabbinical writings, together with several of the Greek and Latin fathers ; and the physician succeeded in identify- ing so many passages with those taken down at the young woman's bedside, that no doiibt could remain in any rational mind concern- ing the true origin of the impressions made on her nervous sys- tem." These cases fhus evince the general fact, geneia ac ^j^^^ ^ mental modification is not proved not these caeeg establish. _ ^ to be, merely because consciousness affords us no •evidence of its existence. This general fact being established, I Lkot. XVJII. METAPHYSICS. 241 now proceed to consider the question in relation to the third chiss or degree of latent modifications, — a class in e ir egreeo relation to, and on the ijround of which alone, it /atency. ' ° . ' has ever hitherto been argued by philosophers. The problem, then, in regard to this class is, — Are there, in ordinary, mental modifications, — i. e. mental Uie problem in re- activities and passivitics, of which we are uncon- tfard to this degree . . . ,^.^^^.^i scious, but which manliest their existence by effects of which we are conscious ? I have tlius stated the question, because tliis appears to me the most unaniljiguous form in which it can be ex- To be considered in pregged ; ti.id hi treating of it, I shall, in the first it.-elf. aud in its his- ' ' ...*„'., ^^^J.^. place, consider it in itself, and, in the second place, in its history. I adopt this order, because the principal difficulties which affect the problem arise from the e. several waves ; — itotniuv re HVfjuiTtev and if the noise of each wave made no impression on our sense, the noise of the sea, as the result of these impressions, could not be realized. But the noise of each several wave, at the distance we suppose, is inaudible ; we must, however, admit that they produce a certain modification, beyond consciousness, on the percipient sub- ject ; for this is necessarily involved in the reality of their result. The same is equally the case in tlie other senses ; the taste or smell of a dish, be it ac^reeable or disagreeable, is com- 3. The other senses. i /. i -^ i ^ n • -i i posed oi a multitude oi severally imperceptible elFects, which the stimulating particles of the viand cause on differ- ent points of the nervous expansion of the gustatory and olfactory organs ; and the pleasant or painful feeling of softness or roughness is the result of an infinity of unfelt modifications, which the body handled determines on the countless papillae of the nerves of touch. " Let us now take, an example from another mental process. We have not yet spoken of what is called the Asso- II. Association of • j^^^ ^^ j .^^.^^ .^^^^-j .^. j^ gnough for our pres- ent purpose that you should be aware, that one thought suggests another in conformity to certain determinate laws, — laws to which the succession of our whole mental states are sub- jected. Now it sometimes happens, that we find one thought ris- ing immediately after another in consciousness, but whose conse- rcution we can reduce to no law of association. Now in these cases we can generally discover, by an attentive observation, that these two thoughts, though not themselves associated, are each associated with certain other thoughts ; so that the whole consecution would have been regular, had these intermediate thoughts come into con- sciousness, between the two which ai-e not immediately associated. Suppose, for instance, that A, B, C, are three thoughts, — that A and C cannot immediately suggest each other, but that each is asso- ciated with B, so that A will naturally suggest B, and B naturally suggest C. Now it may happen, that we ai-e conscious of A, and immediately thereafter of C. How is the anomaly to be explained ? It can only be explained on the principle of latent modifications. A suggests C, not immediately, but through B ; but as B, like the 1 ^Eschylus, Prometheus, 1. 89. —Ed pes, p. 8, 9, (ed. Raspe); and lib. ii. c. i. j 9 2 See Leibnitz, Nouveaux Essais, Avant-Pro- et seq. — Ed. pi';cen*^'n ji.^*^ I •■»%:, I *■!« * ri awc^i Lrct XVm. METAPHYSICS. 24^1 half of tlie minimuTn visibile or minimum aiidihile, does not rise into cons(!iou8ness, we are apt to consider it as non-existent. You are probably aware of the following fact in mechanics. If a nunv ._v ' ber of billiard balls be placed in a straitjcht row and touchinjr each .t''^ other, and if a ball be made to strike, in the line of the row, the ball at one end of the series, what Avill happen ? The motion of the impinging ball is not divided among the whole row ; this, which we might a priori have ex])ected, does not happen, but the impetus is transmitted through the intermediate balls which remain each in its place, to the ball at the opposite end of the series, and this ball alone is impelled on. Something like this seems often to occur in the train of thought. One idea mediately suggests another into consciousness, — the suggestion passing through one or more ideas which do not themselves rise into consciousness. The awakeninsr and awakened ideas here correspond to the ball striking and the ball struck off; Avhile the intermediate ideas of which we are un- conscious, but which carry on the suggestion, rescjmble the inter- mediate balls which remain moveless, but communicate the impulse. An instance of this occurs to me with which I was recently struck. Thinking of Ben Lomond, this thought was immediately followed by the thought of the Prussian system of education. Now, con- ceivable connection between these two ideas in themselves, there was none. A little reflection, however, explained the anomaly. On my last visit to the mountain, I had met upon its sum- mit a German gentleman, and though I had no consciousness of the intermediate and unawakened links between Ben Lomond and the Prussian schools, they were undoubtedly these, — the Gennan, — Germany, — Prussia, — and, these media being admit- ted, the connection between the extremes was manifest. I should perhaps reserve for a future occasion, noticing Mr. Stew- art's explanation of this plnenomenon. Tie Stewart's cxpiaim- admits that a ])erce))tion or idea may ]>ass tion of the pli.x-iiom- .1 i^i • ^ -^i ^1 • '. ^ . . ,. througli the mind without leavinii any trace enon of Association . '^ c j here adduced. ^'^ the memory, and yet serve to introduce other ideas connected with it by the laws of association.' Mr. Stewart can hardly be said to have contemplated the possibility of the existence and agency of mental modifications of which we are unconscious. lie grants the necessity of interpo- lating certain intermediate ideas, in order to account for the connec- tion of thought, which could otherwise be explained by no theory of association; and he admits that these intermediate ideas are not «I E/ftTifnti, part ii. chap, ii.; H'ori-.*. vol. ii. i)p. 121, 122. / 246 METAPHYSICS. ' Lect. XVIII known by memory to have actually intervened. So far, tliere ia no difference in the two doctrines. But now comes the separa- tion. Mr. Stewart supposes tliat the intermediate ideas are, for an instant, awakened into consciousness, but, in the same mo- ment, utterly forgot; whereas the opinion I would prefer, holds that they are efficient without rising into consciousness. Mr. Stewart's doctrine on this point is exposed to all Difficulties of Stew- ,1 -i-zv. i,- i , ^ , „ . . t'= doctrine uilhculties, and has none of the proofs m its favor which concur in establishinor the other. In the first place, to assume the existence of acts of consciousness of which there is no memory beyond the mo- 1 jV Spumes &ct^ * of consciousness of "^^"^ ^^ existence, is at least as inconceivable which there is no an hA^iothesis as the other. But, in the second memory. place, it violatcs the whole analogy of consci- 2. Violates the anal- Q^sness, which the Other does not. Conscious- ogy of consciousness. ness supposes memory ; and we are only consci- ous as we are able to connect and contrast one instance of our intellectual existence with another. Whereas, to suppose the exist- ence and efficiency of modifications beyond consciousness, is not at variance with its conditions; for consciousness, thousfh it assures us of the reality of what is within its sphere, says nothing against the reality of what is without. In the third place, 3. Presumption in -^ j^^ demonstrated, that, in iierception, there are favor of latent acts in t/» • . association. modifications, efficient, though severally imper- ceptible ; why, therefore, in the other faculties, should there not likewise be modifications, efficient, though unap- 4. Stewart's hypo- P«'ii'ent ? In the fourth place, there must be some thesis must take re- rcason for the assumed fact, that there are per- fume in the counter ceptions Or ideas of which we are conscious, but of which there is no memory. Xow, the only reason that can possibly be assigned is that the consciousness was too faint to afford the condition of memory. But of consciousness, however faint, there must be some memory, however short. But this is at variance with the phenomenon, for the ideas A and C may precede and follow each other without any perceptible interval, and without any the feeblest memory of B. If there be no mem- ory, there could have been no consciousness ; and, therefore, Mr. Stewart's hypothesis, if strictly interrogated, must, even at last, take refuge in our doctrine ; for it can easily be shown, that the degree of memory is directly in proportion to the degree of con- sciousness, and, consequently, that an absolute negation of memory is an absolute negation of consciousness. a Lkct. XVIII. METAPHYSICS. 247 Let us now turn to another class of phaenomena, which in like manner are capable of an adequate explanation III. Out Acquired q^] ^,^ ^j^^. tlicorv I have advanced ; — I mean Dexterities and Hab- , . ' i • r- » • i -r^ jjj, the operations resulting from our Acquired Dex- terities and Habits. To explain these, three theories have been advanced. The first regards them as merely mechanical or automatic, .V. '^ *^u '" *,' 'ind thus denvinsay iii., part i chap. 3; t'nit tt'ork.r, p. .j50- * P>ifl 248 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XVIIL idea, or state of mind called will." Cases of this sort Hartley calls " transitions of voluntary actions into automatic ones." ' The second theory is maintained against the first by Mr. Stewart ; and I think his refutation valid, thougli not his The second theory confirmation. "I Cannot help thinking it," he maintained, validly as "more philosophical to suppose that those againist the first, by •'.' ^ / .... ,^ , Stewart. actions Avhicli are originally voluntary always continue so, although in the case of operations, which are become habitual in consequence of long, practice, we may not be able to recollect every different volition. Thus, in the case of a performer on the harpsichord, I apprehend that there is an act of the will preceding every motion of every finger, although he may not be able to recollect these volitions afterwards, and although lie may, during the time of his performance, be employed in carrying on a separate train of thought. For it must be remarked, that the most rapid performer can, when he pleases, play so slowly as to be able to attend to, and to recollect, every separate act of his will in the various movements of his fingers ; and he can gradually accel- erate the rate of his execution till he is unable to recollect these acts. Now, in this instance, one of two sui)positions must be made. The one is, that the operations in the two cases are carried on pre- cisely in the same manner, and difter only in the degree of rapidity ; and that when this ra|)idity exceeds a certain rate, the acts of the will are too momentary to leave any impression on the memory. The other is, that when the rapidity exceeds a certain rate, the ope- ration is taken entirely out of our hands, and is carried on by some unknown power, of the nature of which we are as ignorant as of the cause of the circulation of the blood, or of the motion of the intes- tines. The last supposition seems to me to be somewliat similar to that of a man who should maintain, that although a l)ody projected with a moderate velocity is seen to pass through all the intermediate spaces in moving from one j^lace to another, yet we are not entitled to conclude that this happens when the body moves so quickly as to become invisible to the eye. The former supposition is su])ported by the analogy of many other facts in our constitution. Of some of these I have already taken notice, and it would be easy to add to the number. An expert accountant, for example, can sum up^ almost with a single glance of his eye, a long column of figures. He can tell the sum, with unerring certainty, while, at the same time, he is unable to recollect any one of the figures of which that sum is com- posed ; and yet nobody doubts that each of these figures has passed 1 Vol. i. pp. 108,109. [Observativnx on Man, piop. xxi. — En.l Lect. XVIII. METAPHYSICS. 249 through his mind, or supposes that when tlie rapidity of the process becomes so great that he is unable to recollect the various steps of it, he obtains the result by a sort of inspiration. This last sup- position would be perfectly analogous to Dr. Hartley's doctrine concerning the nature of our habitual exertions. "The only plausible objection which, I think, can be offered to the ])rinciples I have endeavored to establish on this subject, is founded on the astonishing and almost incredible rapidity they necessarily suppose in our intellectual oj)crations. AVhen a person, for example, reads aloud, there must, according to this doctrine, be a separate volition preceding the articulation of every letter ; and it has been found by actual trial, that it is possible to pronounce about two thousand letters in a minute. Is it reasonable to suppose that the mind is capable of so many different acts, in an interval of time so very inconsiderable? " With respect to this objection, it may be observed, in the first jdace, that all arguments against the foregoing doctrine with respect to our habitual exertions, in so far as they are founded on the incon- ceivable raj)idity which they sui)pose in our intellectual operations, aj)ply equally to the common doctrine concerning our perception of distance by the eye. But this is not all. 'I'o what does the sup- position amount Avhich is considered as so incredible ? Oidy to this, that the mind is so formed as to be able to carry on certain intellec- tual processes in intervals of time too sliort to be estimated by our faculties ; a supposition which, so far from being extravagant, is sun- ported by the analogy of many of our most certain conclusions in natural j)hilosophy. The discoveries made by the microscope have laid open to our senses a world (•!' wonders, the existence of which hardly any man would have admitted ujton inferior evidence ; an rn xu- ^ i -i i i i , . ,. , . Leibnitz.- lo this great philosoi)n(!r belongs proclaim this doctrine. _ . . ... the honor of having originated this opinion, and of having supplied some of the strongest arguments in its support. Pie was, however, unfortunate in the tenns which he employed to propound his doctrine. The latent modifications, — the uncon- scious activities of mind, he denominated obscure ideas, obscure representations, perceptions icithout apperception Unfortunate in tlie . . .77 .• . t or consciousness, insensible perceptions, etc. In terms he employed to _ . designate it this he violated the universal usage of language. For perception, and idea, and representation, all proj)er]y involve the notion of consciousness, — it being, in fact, contradictory to speak of a representation not really represented — a j»erception not really perceive ^^ psychologist who can be said to hiive formally projtosed the question. lie, like Mr. Stewart, atti-mpts to cxplaiu why it can be supposed that the mind has moditic.itioiis of w liich we are not conscious, by nssertiiig that we are in tinith conscious of the modification, but tli.it it is immedintely forgotten." In (4er- iiKiiiv, the doitnu' of Leibnitz \\ .-is almost uni- Th.. doctrine of vei-.."lll\ :idol.tc-d. I ,nu Hot aW.lIV of M philoSO- Leibnitz, adojilcd in ' 1 i • 1 1 liermany. P^'^"'' "^' ''"' '''''^^ ""''' ■ "'""" '' ''''^ \WQ\\ ivjefted. \\\ Fr.ince, it h.a.s, I sre, late-ly been liro;iched by M. de ('.irdMilbic* as .i tlieory of his own, .-md this, liis 1 r»e8carte«, Prmcipia, pt. i. § !». — Kl>. 3 Origine dfx Connoissancea Huniaituis, sect '■i Souvfaux Esaais^ ii. 7. Moitnf/ol(H;i'. ^ 41. ii. c. 1, ^ 4 — 13. — Ku. Prtnrijicf. fe la Grare, ^ i. — Kn. * Eliiilrs Elrm^nmirrx ilf Philosophif, t. ii. pp 1.38. 139. 252 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XVIII. originality, is marvellously admitted by authors like M. Damirun, De Cardaiiiac. whom we might reasonably expect to have been better informed. It is hardlv worth addins: that as the doctrine is not new, so nothing new has been contrib- uted to its illustration. To British psycholo- gists, the opinion would hardly seem to have been known. By none, certainly, is it seriously considered.^ Damiron. 1 In tlie second edition of Damiron's Psi/- chologie, vol. i. p. 188, Leibnitz is expressly cited. In theses* edition, however, though the doctrine of latency is stated, (t. i. p. 190), there is no reference to Leibnitz. — Ed. 2 Qualified exception; Karnes's Swaj/.? on the principles of Morality and Natural Religion, (3d edit.), p. 289, to end, Ess. iv., on Matter and Spirit. [With Kames compare Cams, I'sycholosie, ii. p. 185, (edit. 1808). Tucker, Light of Nature, c. 10, § 4. Tralles, De Im- tttortalitate Anima'.,\i. 2Q,etseq. On the general .subject of acts of mind beyond the sphere of consciousness, compare Kant, Anthropologte, § 5. Keinhold, Theorie des Menschlichen Erk- enntnissverniogens und Metaphysik, i. p. 279, et seq. Fries, Anthropologic, i. p. 77, (edit. 1820). Scliulze, Philnsopliische Wissenschaften, i. p. 16, 17. H. .Schmid, Versuch einer Meta- physik der inneren Natur, pp. 23, 232 et seq. Damiron, Cours de Fhilosophie, i. p. 190, (edit. 18.34), Maass, Einbildungskraft, § 24, p. 65 et seq., (edit. 1797). Sulzer, Vermischte Schriften, i. pp. 99, 109, (edit. 1808), Denzinger, Jnstitu- tiones Logics, § 260, i. p. 226, (edit. 1824). Ben- eke, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, § 96 et seq., p. 72^ (edit. 1833). Plainer, PhUosophische Aphcru- men, i. p. 70.] LECTURE XIX. CONSCIOUSNESS, — GENERAI. PHiENOMENA. — DTFF1CULTIJ:S AND FACILITIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. In our last Lecture we were occupied wi^h the last and principal .^ , ,. part of the question, Are there mental acjencies Keaapitulation. ^ -^ _ ® beyond the sphere of Consciousness? — in other words, Are there modifications of mind unknown in tliemselves, but the existence of which we must admit, as the necessary causes of known effects? In dealing Avith this question, I showed, first of all, that there is indisputable evidence for the t^eneral fact, that even extensive systems of knowledge may, in our ordinary state, lie latent in the mind, beyond the sphere of consciousness and will ; but which, in certain extraordinary states of organism, may again come forward into light, and even engross the mind to the exclu- sion of its everyday possessions. The establishment of the fact, that there are in the mind latent capacities, latent riches, which may occasionally exert a ])owerful and obtrusive agency, prepared us for the question, Are there, in ordinary, latent modifications ot mind — agencies unknown themselves as jtlue- Are tiiorcj in ordi- uomcua, but sccrctly concurring to the produc- nary, latent modirtc;.- ^j^,^ ^f manifest cffects ? This i)roblem, I en- tions of mind, concur- ' rin- to tho production deavored to show you, must be answered in the of manifest effects? affirmative. I took for the medium of proof various operations of mind, analyzed these, and found as a residuum a certain constituent beyond the sj)!iere of consciousness, and the reality of which cannot be disallowed, as necessary for the realization of the .illowed effect. My first exam- ples were taken from the faculty of External I'roof from tlie fac- t) ^- it i • i i- ^ 11 ^i A t'rceiitum. 1 showed vou, \n relation to all the nlty of External Per- ' . • . yeption. senses, that there is an ultimate percejitible minimum ; that is, that there is no conscious- ness, no perception of the modification determined by its object in any sense, unless that object determines in the sense a certain 254 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XIX. quantum of excitement. Now, this quantum, though the minimum that can be consciously perceived, is still a whole composed even of an infinity of lesser parts. Conceiving it, however, only divided into two, each of these halves is unperceived — neither is an object of consciousness ; the whole is a percept made up of the unperceived halves. The halves must, however, have each produced its effect towai-ds the perception of the Avhole ; and, therefore, the smallest modification of which consciousness can take account, necessarily supposes, as its constituents, smaller modifications, real, but elud- ing the ken of consciousness. Could we magnify the discerning power of consciousness, as we can magnify the power of vision by the microscope, we might enable consciousness to extend its cog- nizance to modifications twice, ten times, ten thousand times less, than it is now competent to a])prehend ; but still there must be some limit. -Vnd as every mental modification is a quantity, and as no quantity can be conceived not divisible ad infinitum^ we must, even on this hypothesis, allow (unless we assert tliat the ken of consciousness is also infinite) that there are modifications of mind unknown in themselves, but the necessary coiifticients of known results. On the ground of perception, it is thus demonstratively proved that latent agencies — modifications of which we are uncon- scious — must be admitted as a groundwork of the Phainomenology of Mind. The fact of the existence of such latent agencies being proved in reference to one faculty, the presumption is The fact of the ex- established that they exert an influence in all. istence of latent agen- ^^d this presumption holds, even if, in regard dcu , a ^^ some others, we should be unable to demon- presumption that they ' exert an influence in stratc, in SO direct aud exclusive a manner, the all. absolute necessity of their admission. This is Association of Ideas. gho^n j^ regard" to the Association of Ideas. The laws of Associa- i • i • t i i i tion sometimes ap- i" oi'^^^i" to cxplam this, I Stated to you that the parentiy violated. laws, wliich govem the train or consecution of thought, are sometimes apparently violated; and that philosopliers are perforce obliged, in order to ex})lain the seem- ing anomaly, to interpolate, hypothetically, between the ostensibly suggesting and the ostensibly suggested thought, certain -connect- ing links of which we have no knowledge. Now, the necessity of such interpolation being admitted, as admitted it must be, the question arises, How have these' connecting thoughts, the reality of which is supposed, escaped our cognizance ? In explanation of this, there can possibly be- only two theories. It may be said, in the first place, that these intermediate ideas did rise into conscious- Lect. XIX. METAPHYSICS. 255 ness, operated their suggestion, and were then instantaneously for- gotten. It may be said, in the second place, that these interme- diate ideas never did rise into consciousness, but, remaining latent themselves, still served to awaken into consciousness the thought, and thus explain its suggestion. The former of these theories, which is the only one whose possi- bility is contemplated in this country, I endeavored to show you ought not to be admitted, being obnoxious to the most insur- mountable objections. » It violates the Avhole analogy of conscious- ness; and must at last found upon a reason which would identify it with the second theory. At the same time it violates the law of philosophizing, called the hiw of Parcimony, Avhich prescribes that a greater number of causes are not to be assumed than are necessary to explain the pha?nomena. Now, in the present case, if the existence of unconscious niodiiications, — The anomaly solved of latent agencies, be demonstratively proved by the doctrine of la- , , , ^ ,. . i • i ^i tent agencies. ^Y ^^^^ phajuouiena of perception, whu-Ii they alone are competent to explain, why postulate a second unknown cause to account for the pha^nomena of asso- ciation, when these can be better explained by the one cause, which the phsenomena of ])erception compel us to admit? The fact of latent agencies being once established, and shown to be api)licable, as a ])rincii)le of ])sychological solution, I showed you, by other examples, that it enables us to account, in an easy and satisfactory manner, for some of the most perplexing jdue- nomena of mind. In particular, I did this by The same principle reference to our Acipiired Dexterities and Ilab- expiains the opera- j^g j,^ j],,.^^. ,l,^, consecutiou of the various t ions of our Acquired . . , • t i , •. • n i Dexterities and iiab- opemtious IS extremely raj.id; but it is allowed its. on all hands, that, though we are conscious of the series of o])erations, — that is, of the mental state which they conjunctly constitute, — of the .several operations themselves as acts of volition we are wholly incognizant. Now, this incognizance may be e.\i)lained, as I stated to you, on tliree possible hypotheses. In the first ]>lace, we may say that the whole process is effected Avithout either volition, or even any action of the thinking ])rincii)le, it being merely automatic or mechanical. The incognizance to be ex])Liined is thus involved in this hy])othe- sis. In the second place, it may be said that each imlividual act of which the process is made up, is not only ;in act of mental agency, but a conscious act of volition ; but that, there being no memory of these acts, they, consequently, are unknown to us when past. In the third place, it may be said that each individual act 256 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XIX of the process is an act of mental agency, but not of consciousness and separate volition. The reason of incog- ^ The mechanical the- ^izance is thus apparent. The first opinion is iinphilosophical, because, in the first place, it assumes an occult, an incomprehensible principle, to enable us to comprehend the effect. In the second place, admitting the agency of the mind in accomplisliing the series of movements before the habit or dexterity is formed, it afterwards takes it out of the hands of the mind, in order to bestow it upon* another agent. This hypothesis thus violates the two great laws of philosophizing, — to assume no occult principle without necessity, — to assume no second principle without necessity. Tliis doctrine was held by Reid, Hartley, and others. The second hypothesis which Mr. Stewart adopts, is at oiu'v comjilex and contradictory. It supposes a con- j he theory of Con- sciousness and no memory. In the first place, sciousness without ...... , ii«i • Memory. ^^^ ^"^^ ^^ ^^ altogether hypothetical, — it cannot advance a shadow of proof in support of the fiiet which it assumes, that an act of consciousness does or can take place without any, the least, continuance in memory. In the second place, tliis assumption is disproved by the whole analogy of our intellectual nature. It is a law of mind. Consciousness and ^-^at the intensity of the present consciousness Memory in the direct . ... f ^ e- ratio of eacii otiier determines the vivacity oi the luture memoiy. Memory and consciousness are thus in the direct ratio of each other. On the one hand, looking from cause to effect, . — vivid consciousness, long memory ; faint consciousness, short memory ; no consciousness, no memory : and, on the other, looking from effect to cause, — long memory, vivid consciousness; short memory, faint consciousness ; no memory, no consciousness. Thus, the hypothesis which postulates consciousness without memory, violates the fundamental laws of our intellectual being. But, in the third ])hice, this hy2)othesis is not only a psychological sole- cism, — it is, likewise, a psychological pleonasm; it is at once ille- gitimate and superfluous! As we must admit, from the analogy of perception, that efficient modifications may exist without any con- sciousness of their existence, and as this admission affords a solu- tion of the present problem, the hypothesis in question here again violates the law of parcimony, by assuming without necessity a phirality of principles to acQount for what one more easily suffices. The third hypothesis, then, — that which employs the single prin- ciple of latent agencies to account for so numerous a class of mental phaenomena, — how does it explain the phenomenon under Lect. XIX. METAPHYSICS. 257 consideration ? Notliing can be more simple and analogical than its solution. As, to take an example from vis- The theory of laten- ion, — in the external perception of a station- cy shown to explain ^^-^^^^^ .^ Certain spacc, an expanse of sur- the phicnomeiia in ac- ^ . *■ cordance with anal- iii^cG, IS ncccssary to the minimum visibile ; in ogy. other words, an object of sight cannot come into consciousness unless it be of a certain size ; in like manner, in the internal perception of a series of mental opera- tions, a certain time, acertain duration, is necessary for the smallest section of continuous energy to which consciousness is competent. Some minimum of time must l)e admitted as the condition of con- sciousness; and as time is divisible ad infinitum^ whatever mini- mum be taken, there must be admitted to be, beyond the cognizance of consciousness, intervals of time, in which, if mental agencies be ])erformed, these will be latent to consciousness. If we suppose that the minimum of time to which consciousness can descend, be an interval called six, and that six different movements be per- formed in this interval, these, it is evident, will appear to conscious- ness as a sini])le indivisible point of modified time ; precisely as the minimum visibile appears as an indivisible point of modified sjKice. And, as in the extended parts of the minimum visibile^ each must determine a certain modification on the percipient sub- ject, seeing that the effect of the whole is only the conjoined effect of its parts, in like manner, the protended parts of each conscious instant, — of each distinguishable minimum of time, — though them- selves beyond the ken of consciousness, must contribute to give the character to the Avhole mental state which that instant, that mini- mum, comj)rises. This being understood, it is easy to see how we lose the consciousness of the several acts, in the rapid succession of many of our habits and dexterities. At first, and before the liabit is acquired, every act is slow, and we are conscious of the effort of deliberation, choice, and volition ; by degrees the mind proceeds with less vacillation and uncertainty; at length the acts become secure and precise: in proportion as this takes place, the velocity of the procedure is increased, and as this acceleration rises, the individual acts drop one by one from consciousness, as we lose the leaves in retiring further and further from the tree ; and, at last, we are only aware of the general state which results from these unconscious operations, as we can at last only perceive the green- ness which results from tlie unperceived leaves. I have thus endeavored to recapitulate and vary the illustration of this important principle. At present, I can only attempt to offer you such evidence of the fact as lies close to the surface. 33 258 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XIX, When we come to the discussion of the special faculties, you will find that this principle affords an explanation of many intefesting phenomena, and from them receives confirmation in return. Before terminating the consideration of the general phoenomena of consciousness, there are Three Princi}>al Facts Three Principal which it would be improper altogether to pass Facts to be noticed in ^^^^^, ^i^h^ut notice, but the full discussiou of connection with the i . i t /> i r- ^ general pha^nomena which I reserve for that part of the course of consciousness. which is conversaut Avith Metaphysics Proper, and when we come to establish upon their foundation our conclusions in regard to the Immateriality and Immortality of Mind; — I mean the fact of our Mental Existence or Substantiality, the fact of our jVIental Unity or Individuality^ and the fact of our Mental Identity or Personality. In regard to these three fixcts, I shall, at present, only attempt to give you a very summary view of what place they naturally occupy in our psychological system. The first of these — the fact of our own Existence — I have already incidentally touched on, in giving you 1. Self-Existence. • /. , • -i i -, • -i' ■ ■, a view oi the Aarious possible modes m whifh the fact of the Duality of Consciousness may be conditionally accepted. The various modifications of which the thinking subject, Ego, is conscious, are accompanied with the feeling, or intuition, or belief, — or by whatever name the conviction may be called, — that I, the thinking subject, exist. This feeling has been called by phi- losophers the apperception or consciousness of our own existence; but, as it is a simple and ultimate fJict of consciousness, though it be clearly given, it cannot be defined or desci'ibed. And for the same reason that it cannot be defined, it cannot be deduced or demonstrated ; and the apparent enthymeme of Descartes ogito Descai'tcs, — Cooito croo suni, — if really intended ergo Slim. . ' . . , for an inference, — if really intended to be more than a simple enunciation of the proposition, that the fact of our existence is given in the fact of our consciousness, is either tauto- logical, or false. Tautological, because nothing is contained in the conclusion which was not explicitly given in the premise, — the premise, Cogito, I think., being only a grammatical equation of Ego sum cogitans, I am or exist., thinking. False, inasmuch as there would, in the first place, be postulated the reality of thought as a quality or modification, and then, from the fact of this modification, inferred the fact of existence, and of the existence of a subject j Lect. XIX. METAPHYSICS. 259 whereas it is self-evident, that in the very possibility of a quality or modification, is suj>posed the reality of existence, and of an existing subject. Philosophers, in general, among Avhom may be particularly mentioned Locke and Leibnitz, have accordingly found the evidence in a clear and immediate belief in the simple datum of consciousness ; and that this was likewise the opinion of Des- cartes himself^ it Avould not be difficult to show.^ The second fact — our Menial Unity or Individuality — is given with eciual evidence as the first. As clearly as 2. Mental Uiiitv. ^ * . ^ . . , , ^ "^ 1 am conscious oi existing, so clearly am I con- scious at every moment of my existence, (and never more so than when the most heterogeneous mental modifications are in a state of rapid succession,) that the conscious Ego is not itself a mere modification, nor a series of modifications of any other subject, but that it is itself something different from all its modifications, and a self-subsistent entity. This feeling, belief, datum, or fact of our mental individuality or iiiiity, is not more The truti, of the fes- cai)able of explanation than the feeling or fact timony of conscious- „ ., ■,■ i •••,-, ■, ness to our mental ^^ «^"' '^^istence, which it m.lced always in- uuity, doubted. volves. The fact of the deliverance of con- sciousness to our mental unity has, of course, never boon doubted ; but philosophers have been found to doubt its truth. According to Hunie,^ our thinking Ego is nothing but a bundle of individual im- pressions and ideas, out of whose union in the imagination, the notion of a whole, as of a subject of that which is folt and thouoht, is formed. According to Kant,^ it cannot be Kant. , ^ . , , , properly determined Av)iethor Ave exist as sub- stance or as accident, because the datum of individuality is a con- dition of the possibility of our having thoughts and feelings: in other Avords, of the possibility of consciousness; and, therefore, although consciousness gives — cannot but give — the phaenomenon of individuality, it does not folloAV that this phaMiomenon may not be only a necessary illusion. An articulate refutation of these opinions I cannot attempt at ]>resent, bul their icfutation is, in fact, iin-olved in their statement. Li nganl to 1 1 nine, his skeptical con- clusion is oidy an inference from the premises of the dogmatical philosopheis, a\ ho founded their systems on a violation or distortion 1 That Descartes did not intend toprovethe wicnfj Philostophiqiirs. and in vol. i. p. 27 of the fact of exi.-tt'ncc from that of thoiifrht, but to collectod edition of his works. — Ed. state tliat personal e.xistencc consists in con- 2 Treatise of Human ymure, part iv. sect, v., sciousness, is shown in M. Cousin's Disser- vi. — Ed. tation, Sitr le vrai sens dii co^to ergo sum; ."i Kritik tier rcinen Vcrnunft, TranP. Dial, tl printed in the earlier editions of the Frag- ij. c. I. — Ed. 260 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XlX. of the facts of consciousness. His conclusion is, therefore, refuted in the refutation of iheir premises, which is accomplished in the simple exposition that they at once found on, and deny, the veracity of consciousness. And by this objection the doctrine of Kant is overset. For if he attempts to philosophize, he must assert the possibility of philosophy. But the possibility of philosophy sup- poses the veracity of consciousness as to the contents of its testi- mony; therefore, in disputing the testimony of consciousness to our mental unity and substantiality, Kant disputes the possibility of philosophy, and, consequently, reduces his own attempts at philosophizing to absurdity. The third datum under consideration is the Identity of Mind oT Person. This consists in the assurance we have-. 3 Mental Identity. . , ii,- i • x^ 4. from consciousness, that our thinking xLgo, not- withstanding the ceaseless changes of state or modification, of Avhich it is the subject, is essentially the same thing, — the same person, at every period of its existence. On this subject, laying out of account certain subordinate diiferences on the mode of stating the fact, philosophers, in general, are agreed. Locke,^ ii; the Essay on the Human Understanding ; Leibnitz,^ in the Ncm- veaux Essais; Butler,' and Reid,* are particularly worthy of atten tion. In regard to this deliverance of consciousness, the truth of which is of vital importance, affording, as it does, the basis of moral responsibility and hope of immortality, — it is, like the last, denied by Kant to afford a valid ground of scientific certainty. He maintains that there is no cogent proof of the substantial perma- nence of our thinking self, because the feeling of identity is only the condition under which thought is possible. Kant's doubt in regard to the present fact is refuted in the same manner as his doubt in regard to the preceding, and there are also a number of special grounds on which it can be shown to be untenable. But of these at another time. We have now terminated the consideration of Consciousness as the general faculty of thought, and as the only The peculiar diffi- instrument and onlv source of Philosophy. But cullies and facilities ^^^^^^.^ proceeding to treat of the Special Fac- of psychological lu- i o i ^ vestigation. ulties, it may be proper here to premise some observations in relation to the peculiar Difficul- ties and peculiar Facilities which we may expect in the applica- 1 Book ii. c. 27, especially § 9 et seq. — EiT>. 3 Analogy, Diss. i. Of Personal Identity Ed. 2 Liv. ii. c. 27. — Ed. ■* Tnt Powers, Essay iii. ce. ir. vl. — Ed. Lect. XIX. METAPHYSICS. 2^)1 tion of consciousness to the study of its own phaenomena. I sliall first S|)e;ik of the difficulties. Tlie first difficulty in psychological observation arises from tliis, , _.^ , that the conscious mind is at once the observing I. DifBcuIties. 1 • 1 subject and the object observed. "What are the consequences of this? In the first place, the mental energy, instead of being concentrated, is divided, and divided in two divergent directions. The state of mind ob- 1. The conscious served, and the act of mind observing, are mind at once the oh- ^ n • • • , "", .ervinjr subject and mutually in ail inverse ratio; each tends to the object observed. annihilate the other. Is the state to be observed intense, all reflex observation is rendered impos- sible ; the mind cannot view as a spectator; it is wholly occupied as an agent or patient. On the other hand, exactly in proportion as the mind concentrates its force in the act of reflective obser\ a- tion, in the same })roportion must the direct phenomenon lose in vivacity, and, consequently, in the precision and individualitv of its character. This difficulty is manifestly iiisupera})le in those states of mind, which, of their very, nature, as suppressing con- sciousness, exclude all contemporaneous and voluntary observation, as in sleej) and fainting. In states like dreaming, which allow at least of a mediate, but, therefore, only of an imperfect observation, through recollection, it is not altogether exclusive. In all states of strong mental emotion, the passion is itself, to a certain extent, a negation of the tranquillity requisite for observation, so that we are thus impaled on the awkward dilemma, — either we possess the necessary tranquillity for observation, with little or nothing to observe, or there is something to observe, but we liave not the necessary tranquillity for obser\ation. All this is completely oppo- site in our observation of the external world. There the objects lie always ready for our inspection ; and we have only to open our eyes and guard ourselves from the use of hypotheses and green 8])ectacles, to carry our observations to an easy and succos>ifiil termination.' In the second place, in the study of external nature, several observers may associate themselves in the pur- 2. Want of mutual •. i -i. • ii i i .. ,• suit; and it is well known how cooperation cooperation. ' '■ and mutual symjiathy preclude tedium and lan- guor, and brace up the faculties to their highest vigor. Hence the old proverb, ic?ius ho?no, ftuHits homo. "As iron," says Solomon, "sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the understanding of his ] [Cf. Biunde, Vtrsuck tinrr jt/ntematisrhrn Behandlung lifr empirischen P.tychologie, i. p. .V«.J 262 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XlX. " friend,"' "In my opinion," says Flato,^ "it is well expressed by Homer, ' By mutual confidence and mutual aid, Great deeds are done, and great discoveries made; for if we labor in company, we are always more prompt and capa- ble for the investigation of any hidden matter. But if a man works out anything by solitary meditation, he forthwith goes about to find some one with whom he may commune, nor does he think his discovery assured until confirmed by the acquiescence of others." Aristotle,' in like manner, referring to the same passage of Homer, gives the same solution. " Social operation," he says, "renders us more energetic both in thought and action;" a senti- ment which is beautifully illustrated by Ovid,"* " Scilicet ingeniis aliqua est concordia junctis, Et servat studii foedera quisque sui. Utque meis numeris tua dat facundia nervos, Sic venit a nobis in tua verba nitor." Of this advantage the student of Mind is in a great measure deprived. He who would study the internal world must isolate himself in the solitude of his own thought ; and for man, who, as Aristotle observes,^ is more social by nature than any bee or ant, this isolation is not only painful in itself, but, in place of strengthening his jjowers, tends to rob them of what iii.iii)tains their vigor, and stimulates their exertion. In the third place, " In the study of the material universe, it is not necessary that each observer should himself make every observation. The phaenomena are xciousness can be ac- i ■• , t -i i .1 i i 1 cpted at .econd-hand. ^^^^e SO palpable and so easily described, that the experience of one observer suffices to make the facts which lie has witnessed intelligible and credible to all. In point of fact, our knoM'ledge of the external world is taken chiefly upon trust. The phjenomena of the internal world, on the contrary, are not thus capable of being described ; all that the first observer can do is to lead others to repeat his experience : in the science of mind, we can believe nothing upon authority, tp''^ nothing upon trust. In the physical sciences, a fact viewed in different aspects and in diflTerent circumstances, by one or more observers of acknowl- 1 Prox'tr'Of, xxvii. 1". The authorized ver- 3 Eth. Nic, viii. 1. Cf.ibid., ix. 9. — Ed ■ion 18 counltnance. — Ed. 4 Epist ex Ponto, ii. 5, 59, 69. — EX). 2 Prptagoras, p. 348. — Ed. 5 Polit. i. 2. — Ed. 3. No fact of con- Lect. XIX. MKT A PHYSICS. 263 edged sagacity and good faitli, is not only comprehended as clearly by those Avho have not seen it for themselves, but is also admitted without hesitation, independently of all personal verification. Instruction thus suffices to make it understood, and the authority of the testimony carries with it a certainty which almost precludes the possibility of doubt. "But this is not the case in the i)hilosophy of mind. On the <-on- trary, we can here neither understand nor believe at second hand. Testimony can impose nothing on its own authority ; and instruction is only instruction when it enables us to teach ourselves, A fact of consciousness, however well observed, however clearly exj^ressed, and however great may be our confidence in its observer, is for us as nothing, until, by an experience of our own, we have observed and recognized it ourselves. Till this be done we cannot comprehend what it means, far less admit it to be true. Hence it follows that, in l)hilosoi)hy ))n)per, instruction is limited to an indication of the position in wl)i(.'h the pupil ought to place himself, in order by his own observation to verify for himself the facts wliich his instructor ]>ronounces true."' In the fourth place, the phaanomena of consciousness are not arrested during observation, — they are in a ceaseless and rapid flow; each state of mind is indivisible, but for a moment, and there are not two states or two moments of whose precise identity we can l)e assui-ed. Thus, before we can observe a 4. Phaenomcna of i-x; • • • i consciousness not ar- "lodihcation, it IS already altered ; nay, the very rested during obstrva- intention of observing it, suffices for the change, tion, but only to be It hcnce results that the phajuomena can only be studied throu<;)i mem- 4. t i iU 1 -^ • • 1 studied through its reminiscence ; but memory reproduces it often very imperfectly, and always in lower vivacity and precision. The objects of the external world, on the other hand, remain either unaltered during our observation, or can be renewed without change ; and we c;in leave oft' at will and recommence our investigation -without detriment to its result.- In the fit\h place, "The phenomena of the mental world are not, like those of the material, placed by the side of each T). Presented only in .1 • rni ..!*./• 1 1 • 1 -„~,o„„-«„ other 111 Space. 1 hey want that form bv which succession. i j external objects attract and fetter our attention ; they appear oi''-'« in rows on the thread of time, oc(U|tying their fleeting moment, an ^• , • r • /» .,, ,, , , , which, irom earliest iniancy, we receive irora with tlie frequent and J ^ , varied sentiment of material objects, the wants of our animal nature, pleasure, which we and tlie prior development of our external senses,, experience from the ^|j contribute to Concentrate, even from the first impression ol external . it • ,,,i, g breath of life, our attention on the world witn- out. The second ])asses without our caring to observe ourselves. Tlie outer life is too agreeable to allow the soul to tear itself from its gratifi(%ations, and return frequently upon itself. And at the period when the material Avorld lias at length ])alled upon the senses, when the taste and the desire of reflection gradually become predominant, we then find ourselves, in a certain sort, already made up, and it is impossible for us to resume our life from its commeniement, and to discover how we have become what we now are." - "■ Hitherto external objects have exclusively riveted our attention ; our organs have acquired the flexibility requisite for this peculiar kind of observation ; Ave have learned the method, acquired the habit, and feel the ])leasure which results from perform- ing what we jterform m ith ease. But let us recoil upon ourselves; the scene changes; the charm is gone; difficulties accumulate ; all that is done is done irksomely and Avith effort ; in a word, every- thing within repels, everything Avithout attracts ; Ave reach the age of manhood without beins; tautxht another lesson than readinir Avdiat takes ])lace without and around us, Avhilst Ave possess neither the habit nor the method of studying the volume of our own thoughts."* "F\)r a long time, Ave ai'e too absorbed in life to be able to detach ourselves from it in thought ; and Avlieii the desires and the feelings &,re at length Aveakened or tranquilli/A'd, — when Ave are at length restored to ourselves, we can no longer judge of the preceding state, because we can no longer reproduce or re])lace it. Thus it is that our life, in a pliiloso])liieal sense, runs like water through our fingers. We are carried along lost, whelmed in our life ; Ave live, but rarely see ourselves to live. "■The reflective Ego, Avhich distinguishes self from its transitory modifications, and which separates the spectator from the spectacle of life, Avhich it is continually representing to itself, is never devel- oped in the majority of mankind at all, and evi-n in the thoughtful I [Biunde, Pxycholngif, vol. i. p. 56. J ^ [.\ncillon. .Vohi-. ^U■lans:rs. t ii. p. 103. j a [Cardaillac, Etmlrs. lie P/iilosnphir, t. i. p. S.] 31 266 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XIX and reflective few, it is foi'ined only at a* mature period, and is even then only in activity by starts and at intervals." ^ But Philosophy has not only peculiar difficulties, it has also peculiar facilities. There is indeed only one 10 aci I les o external condition on which it is dependent, pliiloHOphical study. _ ^ '■ and that is language ; and when, in the progress of civilization, a language is once formed of a copiousness and pli- ability capable of embodying its abstractions Avithout figurative ambiguity, then a genuine philosophy may commence. With this one condition all is given ; the Philosopher requires for his dis- coveries no preliminary j)reparations, — no apparatus of instruments and materials. He has no new events to seek, as the Historian ; no new combinations to form, as the Mathematician. The Botanist, the Zoologist, the Mineralogist, can accumulate only by care, and trouble, and expense, an inadequate assortment of the objects necessary for their labors and observations. But that most impor- tant and interesting of all studies of which man himself is the object, has no need of anything external ; it is only necessary that the observer enter into his inner self in order to find there all he stands in need of, or rather it is only by doing this that he can hope to find anything at all. If he' only effectively pursue the method of observation and analysis, he may even dispense with the study of philosophical systems. This is at best only useful as a mean towards a deeper and more varied study of himself, and is often only a tribute paid by philosophy to erudition. ^ 1 [Ancillon, Ncuv. Melanges, t. ii. pp. 103, ThxxTot, Introduction d T Etude df. la PhilotopMe 104, 105.] t. i., Disc. Pr61. p. 36.] ■■i [Cf. Fries, Logik. « 126, p. 587 (edit. 1819). LECTURE XX. DISTRIBUTION OF tHE SPECIAL COGNITIVE FACULTIES. Gentlemen : — We have now concluded the consideration of Consciousness, viewed in its more general rela- The Special Facul- . i , n i ^ i ties of Knowledge. ^^^ns, and shall proceed to analyze its more par- ticular modifications, that is, to consider the various Special Faculties of Knowledge. It is here proper to recall to your attention the division I gave you of the Mental Pha^nomona into three great Three great classes classes, — viz., the ])ha?nomena of Knowledge, •f mental iihaenom- , , i« t-> i- i ^i i "^ the phaenomena oi r eelinf'', and tlie ])h;enomena ena. * , of Conation. But as these various phajnomena all suppose Consciousness as their condition, — those of the first class, the phaenomena of knowMedge, being, indeed, nothing but con- sciousness in various relations, — it was necessary, before descending to the consideration of the subordinate, first to exhaust the princi- ]»al ; and in doing this the discussion has been ]»rotracted to a •greater length than I anticipated. 1 now proceed to the j)articular investigation of the first class of the mental phfenomena, — those of Knowledge The tirgtciag8,-Piia-- ^^ Cognition, — and shall commence by delineat- iiomeiia of Knowl- . , ^i t ^ -i x* r xi :*:., niir to vou the distribution oi the co[;nitive edge. r> . > _ faculties which I shall adoi)t; — a distribution different from any other with which T am acquainted. But I would first promise an observation in regard to psychological powers, and to ])sychological divisions. As to mental j)owers, — under which term are included nuiital fac\dties and capacities, — you are not to suppose Mental power*. ' , , ,> i • i • entities ri-ally distinguishable from the thinking principle, or really diti'trcnt from each other. Mental powers are not like bodilv organs. It is the same simple substance which exerts every energy of every faculty, however various, and which is afl^ected in every mode of every capacity, however opjiosite. This has frequently been wilfully or igiu.traiitly misumlerstood ; .and, 268 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XX among others, Dr. Brown has made it a matter of reproach to phi. losophers in general, that they regarded the fac- Brown wrong as to ulties into which they analyzed the mind as so the common phiio- many distinct and independent existences.' No sophical opinion re- garding these, reproach, hoAvever, can be more unjust, no mis- take more flagrant ; and it can easily be shown that this is perhaps the chai-ge, of all others, to wliich the very small- est number of psychologists need plead guilty. On this point Dr. Brown does not, however, stand alone as an accuser ; and, both be- fore and since his time, the same charge has been once and again pre- ferred, and this, in particular, with singular infelicity, against Reid and Stewart. To speak only of the latter, — he sufficiently declares his opinion on the subject in a foot-note of the Dissertation: — "I quote," he says, "the following passage from Addison, }iot as a speci- men of his metajDhysical acumen, but as a proof of his good sense in divining and obviating a difficulty, M'hich, I believe, most persons will acknowledge occurred to themselves when they first entered on metaphysical studies : — ' Although we divide the soul into several powers and faculties, there is no such division in the soul itself, since it is the v;1wle soul that remembers, understands, wills, or imagines. Our manner of considering the memory, understanding, will, imagi- nation, and the like faculties, is for the better enabling us to express ourselves in such abstracted subjects of speculation, not that there is any such division in the soul itself.' In another part of the same paper, Addison observes, ' that what we call the faculties of the soul are only the different ways or modes in which the soul can exert herself.' — ASpccto^w, No. 600."- I shall first state to you what is intended by the terms 7nental power, faculty, or capacity ; and then show you that What meant by men- j^^, other opinion has been generally held by tal power ; and the rel- ative opinion of phi- philosophers. losophers. It is a fact too notorious to be denied, that the mind is capable of diflTerent modifications, that is, can exert different actions, and can be affected by different pas- sions. This is admitted. But these actions and passions are not all dissimilar; every action and passion is not different from every other. On the contrary, they are like, and they are unlike. Those, therefore, that are like, Ave group or assort together in thought, and bestow on tliem a common name ; nor are these groups or assort- ments manifold, — they are in fact few and simple. Again, every action is an effect; every action and 2)assiou a modificatiou. But 1 Philosophy of the Hitman Mind, Lecture xvi. vol. i. p. 3.38, (second edition.) — Kd. 2 ColUtieiJ Works, vol i. p. 334. m Lkct. XX. METAPHYSICS. 269 every effect supposes a cause ; every modification supposes a subject. When Ave say that the mind exerts an energy, we virtually say that the mind is the cause of tlie energy; wlien we say tliat the mind acts or suifers, we say in other words, that the mind is the subject of a modification. But the modifications, tliat is, tlie actions and passions, of the mind, as we stated, all fall into a few resembling groups, wliich we designate by a peculiar name ; and as the mind is the common cause and subject of all these, we are surely entitled to say in general that the mind has the faculty of exerting such and such a class of energies, or has the capacity of being modified by such and such an order of affections. We here excogitate no new, no occult principle. We only generalize certain effects, and then infer that common effects must have a common cause ; we only classify certain modes, and conclude that similar modes indicate the same capacity of being modified. There is nothing in all this con- trary to the most rigid rules of philosophizing; nay, it is the purest sjx'cimen of the inductive j)hilos()phy. On this doctrine, % faculty is nothing more than a general term for the causality the mind has of originating a cer- Kaculty and Capac- . , „ . . , , ity distinguished. ^'^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ energies ; a caimcity only a general term for the suscej)tibility the mind has of being affected by a particular class of emotions.' All mental f)owers are thus, in short, nothing more tlmn niuues deterniined by various orders of mental pha'nomen.i. But as these ])h;cnomena differ from, and resemble, each other in various respects, various modes of classi- fication may, therefore, be ac4oi»ted, and consequently, various facul- ties and capacities, in different views, may be the result. And, this is what we actually see to be the case in the different systems of pliilosophy ; for each system of phi- i-Juiosopiiioai Sys- losophv is a different view of the pluenomena tern, — its tiuf placr /. • ' , -it i x i i i i «nd importance. ^^ w\\\v\. Now, here I would obscrvc tiiat we miglit fill into one or other of two errors, eitlier by attributing too great or too small importance to a systematic arrangement of the mental ])hjen()mena. It must be conceded to tliose who affect to undervalue })~yc]iological system, that sy.stem is nrither the end first in the order of time, nor that paramount in tin scale of importance. To attemjit a definitive system or synthesis, before we liave fully analyzed and accumulated the facts to be ar- ranged, would be preposterous, and necessarily futile ; and system is only valuable when it is not arbitrarily devised, but arises natu- rally out of an observation of the facts, and of the whole facts, themselves ; t^s ttoAAt}? Trtipa? TtXturatoi' iTnyiyvrjfJia. 1 Sue above, p. 123, ft $eq. — Ed. 270 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XX. On the other hand, to despise system is to despise philosophy j for the end of philosophy is the detection of unity. Even in the progress of a science, and long prior to its consummation, it is indeed better to assort the materials we have accumulated, oven though the arrangement be only temporary, only provisional, than to leave them in confusion. For Mathout such arrangement, M'e are unable to overlook our possessions ; and as experiment results from the experiment it supersedes, so system is destined to generate system in a progress never attaining, but ever approximating to, perfection. Having stated what a psychological power in propriety is, 1 may add that this, and not the other, opinion, has been The opinion gener- ^^^ ^^^ prevalent in the various schools and ages ally prevalent regard- ^ i-i i t it jj ing mental powers. ^^ philosophy. I could adducc to you passagcs in which the doctrine that the faculties and ca- ])acities are more than mere jiossible modes, in which the simple indivisible principle of thought may act and exist, is explicitly denied by Galen,^ Lactantius,^ Tertullian,^ St. Austin,'* Isidorus," Irenjeus,^ Synesius,'^ and Gregory of Nyssa,^ among the fathers of 1 Galen, however, adopting Plato's three- fold division of the faculties {Ratio, Iracundia^ Cvpiditas), expressly teaches that these have separate local seats, and that the mind is a whole composed of parts dilToient both in kind and in nature {genere et naturn). See his De Hii/pocratis et Ptatonis De.cretis. lib. vi. Opera, pp. 1003, 1004, et seq. (edit Basle, 1549). Cf. lib. V. c. viii. — Ed. 2 [ De Opificin Dfi, c. 18.] [ Opera, ii. 125 (edit. 1784); where, however, Lactantius merely pro- nounces the question in regard to the identity or difference of the anima and a/iinnis, insolu- ble, and gives the arguments on both sides. — Ed] 3[De Anima, c. 18.] [Opera, ii. 304, (edit. 1630): " Quid sensus, nisi ejus rei qua; senti- tur, intellectus? Quid intellectus nisi ejus rei quaa intelligitur sensus? Unde ista tormenta cruciandae siniplicitatis, et suspendend:e veri- tatis? Quis mihi e.xhibebit sensum nou intel- ligentem quod sentit? aut intellectum non sentientemquod intelligit? . . . Sicorporalia quidem sentiuntur, incorporalia vero intelli- guntur: verum geneia diver.«a sunt non do- micilia sensus et intellectus, id est, non anima et animus." - Ed ] •« See De Trinitate, lib. x. c. 8, § 18. Opera, viii. p. 898 (edit. Bened): '■ Ha'c tria, me- moria, intelligentia, voluntas, quoniam non sunt tres vitae, sed una vita, nee tres mentes, sed una mens; consequenter utique, nee tres substantia; sunt, sed una substantia. Quocirca tria ha;c eo sunt unum, quo una vita, una mens, una essentia." Cf. ibid.. lib. xi. c. 3. §§ 5, 6, Opera, viii. p. 903, (edit. Bened.) L. ix. c iv. § 3, and c. v. § 8. The doctrine of St. Augustin on this point, bow- ever, divided the schoolmen. Henry of tilient, aud Gregory of Rimini, maintained that his opinion was Nominalistic, while others held that it might be Identitied with that of Aquinas. See Fromondu.o, Philoso- ]>hia Christiana de Anima, lib. i. C. vi. art. iii. p. \m et seq. (ed. 1649). —Ed. 5 [Originum, lib. xi. c. 1.] [Opera, p. 94, (edit. 1617] : " Ha?c omnia adjuncta sunt anima>, ut una res sit. Pro etificientiis enim cau.^iarum diversa nomina sortita est anima. Nam et memorm mens est : dum ergo vivificat corpus, anima est; dum scit, wen.? est; dum vult, animus est; dum recolit, memoria est,"' — Ed ] 6 [Contra Ha:resiS, lib. ii. C. 29.] [Opera, t. i. p 392, (edit. Leipsic, 1848) : "Sensus hominis, mens, et cogitatio, et intentio mentis, et ea quK sunt hujusmodi, non aliud quid prajter animam sunt ; sed ipsius anima; motus et operationes, nullam sine anirna habeutes sub- stantiam."' — Ed.] 7 [De Insomniis,] [Opera, p. 103, (edit. 1.5.53): "OKw CLKOVfl TO! ttViVjJATl, «oi OKw ^KflTfl., Ko.] TO Aonra iraina ZvvaTai. Avvafieis fiia ixfv ■waffai Kara. Tr/r KOiv^f ^iCav' iroAAoI Se Kara Trep\o5ov. — Ed. 8 [ De Hominis Opificio, c. vi.] [ Opera, i. p. 55.] [OuSc yap J)fJ.1v TToWai rives elfflf at av- ri\y]TTTtKaL rwv irpayixaruv 5vvafxeis, el kcu iroXvTpSvws Sio rojv alff^rtaewv rwv Karh Lect. XX. METAPHYSICS. 271 the Church ; by lamblichus,^ Plotinus,- Prochis,'' Olympiodorus,* and the pseudo Hermes Trisniegistus/' among the Platonists ; by the Aphrodisian," Ammonias Hermiae/ and Philoponus^ among tho Aristotelians. Since the restoration of letters the same doctrine is explicitly avowed by the elder Scaliger,^ Patricias,^" and Campa^ nella;" by Descartes,'^ Malebranche,^^ Leibnitz," and Wolf;^^ by Condillac,'*^ Kant/^ and the whole host of recent philosophers. (uriv icpairrcifif^a. Mia yap ris eVTi Sv- vafxis, auTos 6 (yKeifj.evos vovs, 6 Si tKaa- Tou Twf al(r^Tr)picov Sie^ioiv, Kal ritiv ovTdiv (TriSpaffffS/xivo^. — El).] 1 " Aiiiiiia . 3 In I'ldionis Theolo^iam, lib. iv. c. xvi. p. p. 210, {edit. 1(518): Aiot 70^ ttji/ aKpav fit- Tovffiav Tr[S ffvvoxris, a/j-epiaros & vovs, Aia Sf ^h Sfvrepa jxtTpa ttjs /Ufi^f^fois, 7) 4'i'X'? fJ-fpi(TTi), Kal a/xfpicTTos ((TTi. Kara fitav (TvyKpamv. Ibid., lib. i. c. xi. p. 25: T>/i/ 5e v|/uxV e" xai iroAA.0 ; — tlnKs ren- dered in the Latin version of Tortus: " Ani- mam unam i-t mnitu, [propter varias nnius aninue faenltates, et variaruin rcnim cogni- tionem, (juam una anima liabet.'"] — Ed. < 01.vnipitln, cited by (\)usin, Fni^tnrnis PJiil- osophiqurs, tom. i. p. 421, (ed. 1847). Neither passage, however, bears decisively on this question. — Ed. * De Intfllfctiont ft Srnsu, lib. XV. f 42.) [Ta- tricii, iVoea r//" Univfrsis P/ii7o.vo/)/im, (edit. 1593) : 'El' yap To7s oWois (,'aioir rj alff^ffii tj; (pvfffi Tfivwrai, iv 5' av^puirois 1'] v6T](rts. 'Noriaecos 5e 6 vovs Siatpfperat toctovtov, oaov 6 Qfhs .3^ej($TT)Tos. 'H juev yap i&eioTTjs inrh Tov iyeov yivtiai, t] Se v6r}(ns vnh rod vov, aSe\ii ovtra rod \6yov, Kai upyava aK\ri\(i>v. — Ed.] '■ riotraj yap aurai (sc. \pvxrt ^perrTiKT), aiff^TiKii, (pavra(T TiKT], bpfxtfTiKi], opeKTiKt'i) fxia ovaai Kara rh vwoK^ifievov, rdis Sta(po- pa7s Toov Suva/xewv avTa7s Sivp7]VTai. In De Anima, lib. i. f 140o, (edit. Vcn. 1534)— Ed. ' T/}$ T}iJ.erepas ^ux'is SittoJ al ivfpyeiai, at /ter yvwffriKal, olov vovs, SavTa(Tia, Siivoia, al Se ^wiiKal Kai optKTi- Kal, oTov 0ov\T]ats, irpoaipfffts, ^u/xhs, Kal iTri^v/xla. In Qiiinque Voces Porphyrii, f. 7n. (edit. Aldine, 1516). — Ed. ^ In Df Anima, Procem, f. 4«. : Oi) yap olSev iaurriv 77 u^is, i) i) CLKo-ij, i] awKuis tj aicr^tris' oiiSe C'?'''*' '"'oias iffrl (pvcrtccs' t] fievTot ^VX'^ ^ KoytKTj, avrjj eaurqv yivdia- Kei- ai/TT) yovv icTTiv t) ^rj-rovcra' a'urri ^ ^TiTov/xfi'ij' avrri tj (vpiaKovaa, avTrj tj fv- pi(TKop.fV7]' 7] yivwcTKovcra, Kal yivajaKOfXfvr]- Cf In lib. i. c. v., text 89,-to end. — Ed. i' Exercitationes, [ccxcvii. 5 1 1 cccvii. ^ 37.] [Cf cccvii. § 15.] — Ed. 10 Mystica jEs:yptiorum, lib. ii. C. iii. f. 4, col. 2: "Anima unica est et simplex; sed multi- plicantur virtutes ejus, ultra substantiam, et sividetur operari plurima siniul, ejus opera sunt mulla ratione pationtnni. Si quidem corpora non recipiunt operationcs animas equaliter, sed pro condifione sua; ergo plu- ralitas operationum inest rebus, non anima-. "' — Eu. II '• Eandem aniinani sentientem et memo- rativam esse iinaginativam et discursivam."* See De Sensu Rertim, lib. ii C. xxi. p. 77, (edit. 10.37). Cf cc. xix. XX. — Ed. 1- [De Passinnibtis, pars. ii. art. 68.) IT HrrhfTchf dr la Vcritc, lib. iii. C. i. } 1 — Ep. H [iVoifivniM Esfais, lib. ii. C. xxi. 4 •>■ p 133 — edit. Jtaspe.] 15 [Psyciwlogia RationaJis, f 81.] 11! [De r Art de pen.irr, c. viii. Cours, t. iii p. 304.) 1' Kritikder reinen r.-rauMy}- Transac. Dial., H. ii. II. I. (p. 407, edit. 1799). Kant, ho^ 272 METAPHYSICS. 1 X'T. XX During the mirldle ages, the question was indeed one which divided the schools. St. Thomas,^ at the head of one party, hehl that the faculties were distinguished not only from each other, but from the essence of the mind ; and this, as they phrased it, really and not formally. Henry of Ghent," at the head of another party, main- tained a modified opinion, — that the faculties were really distin- iruished from each other, but not from the essence of the soul, Scotus,^ again, followed by Occam ^ and the whole sect of Nominal- ists, denied all real difference either between the several faculties, or between the ficulties and the mind ; allowing between them only a formal or logical distinction. This last is the doctrine that has sub- seqiiently prevailed in the latter ages of philosophy ; and it is a proof of its universality, that few modern psychologists have ever thought it necessary to make an explicit profession of their faith in what they silently assumed. No accusation can, therefore, be more un- grounded than that which has been directed against philosopher's, — that they have generally harbored the opinion that faculties are, like organs in the body, distinct constituents of mind. The Aristotelic principle, that in relation to the body "the soul is all in the whole and all in every part," — that it is the same indivisible mind that operates in sense, in imagination, in memory, in reasoning, etc., differently indeed, but differently only be- cause operating in different relations,^ — this opinion is the one The Aristotelic doc- trine regarding the re- lation of the soul to the body. ever, while he admits this unity of the sub- ject, as a couception involved in the fiict of consciousuess, denies that the conception can be legitimately transferred to the soul as a real substance. — Ed. 1 Summa, pc-'S i. Q. 77, art. i. et seg. Ibid., Q. 54. art. iii. Cf. In SfM., lib. i. dist. iii. Q. 4, art. ii. St. Thomas is followed by Capre- olus, Cajetan, Ferrariensis, and Marsilius Fi- cinus. See Cottunius, De Trip. Stat. AnimcE Rationalii, p. 281. — Ed. 2 llenry of Ghent is, by Fromondus, classed with Gregory of Kimini and the Nominalists. See De Anima, lib. ii. c vi. P.ut see (ienovesi, Element. Metapha. pars ii. p. 120. — Eu. 3 See Zabaiella, De Rebus Diniumlihu^. Lib. De Facultaiibus Aninut, p 685 Tennemann, Gesch. der Pliilosop/iie, viii. 2. p. 7ol.] [" Uieo igitur," says Scot us, ''quod potest sustiiicri, quod essentia anima; indistincta re et ratione, est principium plurium actionum sine diversi- tate reali potentiarum, ita quod siut vel par- tes animae vel accidentia, vel respectus Dices, quod erit ibi saltern differentia rationis. Concedo, sed hac nihil faciet ad principium ooerationis rcalis. In .S/'nr., lib. ii. dist. 16. Q. 2, (quoted by Tennemann.) The Conim- bricenses distinguish between the doctrine of Scotus, and that held in common by Gregory (Ariminensis), Occam, Gabriel Biel, Marsilius, and almost the whole sect of the Nominalists, — who, they say, concur in affirming, — " po- tentias [animae] nee re ipsa, nee formaliter, et natura rei, ab animse es.sentia distingui, licet anima ex varietate actionum diversa nomina sortiatur;" whereas Scotus, according to them, is of opinion that, while the faculties can- not in reality (re ipsa) be distinguished from the mind, these may, however, be distin- guished "formaliter, et ex natura rei." In De Anima, lib ii c. iii. Q 4, p. 150. Cottunius attributes the latter opinion to the Scotists universally. See his De Triplici Statu Anima liatiunalis, p. 280, (ed. 1628.) Cf. Toletus, Ir De Anima. lib. ii. c. iv. f. 69. — Ed.] 4 In Sent., lib. ii. dist. 16, qq. 24, 26. Se«s Conimbricenses, In De Anima, p. 150. Cot- tuniu.-,, De Trip. Stat. An Rat-, p. 280. — Ed. 5 De Anima, i. v. 31: 'AW' ovSiv T\rTov if fKaTfprj) rwv fioplajv hiravT' ivvirapx^t to p.6pM tT/s ^vxn^i K- ■''■ ^. Cf. Plotinus, above, p. 271, note 2. — Ed. Lkct. XX. METAPHYSICS. . 273 i<^''i cousciousncss IS manifested. It being, therefore, understood that consciousness is not a Bpecial faculty of knowledge, but the general faculty out of whidi the special faculties of knowledge are evolved, I proceed to thii: evolution. In the first i)lace, as we are endowed with a faculty- of Cognition, or Consciousness in general, and since it cannot I. Tlie Preseiitative ..,,,, Pagy,, be maintained that we have always ]>ossessea the knowledge which we now ]iossess, it will be admitted, that we must have' a faculty "of acquiring knowledge. 1 See above, p 130.— 'Ed 35 274 ^ METAPHYSICS. Lect. XX. But this acquisition of knowledge can only be accomplished by the immediate presentation of a new object to consciousness, in other words, by the reception of a new object within the sj)here of our cognition. We liave thus a faculty Avhich may be called the Acquis- itive, or the Presentative, or the Receptive. Now, new or adventitious knowledge may be either of things external, or of things internal ; in other words, Subdivided, as Ex- either of the phienoniena of the non-ego, or of temal and Internal, „ , ,,.,.'"'.. into Perception and "''^ pha^nomenu ol tlie ego ; and this distinction Self Cousciougness. of object will detennine a subdivision of this, the Acquisitive Faculty. If the object of knowl- edge be external, the faculty receptive or presentative of the quali- ties of such ol'ject, will be a consciousness of the non-ego. This has obtained the name of External Perception, or of Perception simply. If, on the other hand, the object be internal, the fliculty receptive or presentative of the qualities of such subject-object, will be a consciousness of the ego. This faculty obtains the name of Internal or Reflex Perception, or of Self-Consciousness- By the foreign psychologists this faculty is termed also the Internal Sense. Under the general faculty of cognition is thus, in the first place, distinguished an Acquisitive, or Presentative, or Receptive Faculty ; and this acquisitive faculty is subdivided into the consciousness of the non-ego, or External Perception, or Perception simply, and into the consciousness of the ego, or Self-Consciousness, or Internal Perception. This acquisitive faculty is the faculty of Experience, External perception is the faculty of external, self-consciousness is the faodty of internal, experience. If we limit the term Reflection in con- formity to its original enqilo^^ment and proper signification, — an attention to the internal phaenomena, — reflection will be an expres- sion for self-consciousness concentrated. In the second place, inasmuch' as we are capable of knowledge, we must be endowed not only with a faculty of II. The Conservative jj^quiring, but with a foculty of retaining or Faculty, — Memory ^ • -^ i • t iy ^\ • c "i* Prope-. conserving it when acquired. By this taculty, I mean merely, and in the most limited sense, the power of mental retention. We have thus, as a second neces- sary faculty, one that may be called the Conservative or Retentive. This is Memory, strictly so denominated, — that is, the power of, retaining knowledge in the mind, but out of consciousness ; I say retaining knowledge in the mind, but out of consciousness, for to brinir theretenttim out of memorv into consciousness, is the function of a totally different faculty, of which we are immediately to speak. i Lect. XX. METAPHYSICS. 275 Under tlie general faculty of cognition is thus, in the second place, distinguished the Conservative or Retentive Faculty, or Memory Proper. Whether there be subdivisions of this faculty, we shall not here iiujuire. But, in the third place, if we are capable of knowledge, it is not enough that we possess a faculty of acquiring, ■ ' .^ '^^^° "'^" and a faculty of retaining it in the mind, but out of consciousness; we must further be en- dowed with a faculty of recalling it out of unconsciousness into consciousness, in short, a reproductive power. This Reproductive Faculty is governed by the laws which regulate the succession of our thoughts, — the laws, as they are called, of Mental Association. If these laws are allowed to operate without Subdivided as with- ^he intervention of the will, this faculty may be out, or with Will, into n i o ,• c-i - .-^ * „ ^. , ,, ■ called Suggestion, or Spontaneous Suggestion ; i5ugge.»ition and K«mi- ~° ' ^ oo ' niscence. whereas, if applied under the influence of the will, it will properly obtain the name of Remi- niscence or Recollection. By reproduction, it should be ol)served, that I strictly mean the i)rocess of recoverinor the absent thoiudit from unconsciousness, and not its representation in consciousness. This reproductive faculty is commonly confounded with the con- servative, under the name of Memory ; but most erroneously. These qualities of mind are totally unlike, and are possessed by difterent individuals in the most ditt'erent degrees. Some have a strong ficulty of conservation, and a feeble faculty of re])roduction ; others, again, a ]>rompt and active reminiscence, but an evanescent retention. Under the general faculty of cognition, there is thus discriminated, in the third jilace, the Reproductive Faculty. In the fourth place, as capable of knowledge, we must not onlv be endowed with a 2)resentative, a conservative, IV. Tlie Rcprcseuta- i t j.- r ^^ a.\ • • i !• and a rei)n)(luctive laculty ; tliere is reouired tor tive faculty,— 1 mag- _ ' _ _ •' ' ^ ^ ination. their consummation — for the keystone of the arch — a faculty of rejiresenting in consciousness, and of keeping before the mind the knowleossessed by the mind of manifestuig these phainomena, we may bestow the name of the Regulative Faculty. This faculty corresponds in some measure to what, in the Aristotelic j>hilosophy, was called Xo??, — vovs {ln- teUectu.% mens), when strictly employed, being a term, in that phi- losophy, for the place of principles, — the locus principioruni. It is analogous, likewise, to the term Reason^ as occasionally used by some of the older English philosophers, and to the Vermmft (rea- son) in the philosophy of Kant, Jacobi, and others of the recent German metai)hysician.s, and from them adopted into France and England. It is also nearly convertible with what I conceive to be Reid's, and certainly Stewart's, notion of Common Sense. This, the last general foculty which I would distinguish under the Cog- nitive Faculty, is thus what I would call the Regulative trr Legisla- tive, — its synonyms being Xo??, Intellect, or Common Sense. You will observe that the term f'ux^tjj can be applied to the class of i)hu'noiuena lu-re collected under one The term Faculty „.,„j^,^ ^^^^j j^^ ^ ^,^^,^. ^XxW^^.y^xW. signification from not properly applica- i • i * bietoReaKonorCom- ^^'"=1^' I*' ^'^^'^^'^ ^^''i*^'! ai>j)lied to the preceding men Sense. powers. For vol's, intelligence or common sense, meaning merely the complement of the funda- mental principles or laws of thought, is not properly a faculty, that is, it is not an active power at all. As it is, however, not a capac- ity, it is not easy to see by what other word it can be denoted. Such are the six special Faculties of Cognition ; — 1°, The Ac- arenthetically, the reason why I fre(iuently employ co(jnitio)i as a synonym of knowledge. This Employment of the .^^\^^^ j^^^^^ merely for the sake of varying the term Cognition vindi- . '' . . "^ ^ p,ted. expression. Tn the first place, it is necessary to have a word of this signification, which we can use in the plural. Now the term knoirled(/es has waxed obsolete, though I think it ouglit to ])e revived. It is frequently employed 280 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XXL l)y Bacon.' We must, therefore, have recourse to the term cogni- Hon, of which the phxral is in common usage. But, in the second place, we must likewise have a term for knowledge, which we can em})loy adjectively. The word knoxdedge itself has no adjective, for the participle knowing is too vague and unemphatic to be em- ployed, at least alone. But the substantive cognition, has the ad- jective cognitive. Thus, in consequence of having a plural and an adjective, cognition is a word we cannot possibly dispense with in psychological discussion. It would also be convenient, in the third place, for psychological precision and emphasis, to use the word to cognize in connection with its noun cognition, as we use the decom- pound to recognize in connection with its noun recognition. But in this instance the necessity is not strong enough Condition under to warrant our doing what custom has not done. which the employ- you will noticc, such an innovation is always meiit of new terms in . „ . , i xi • i t philosophy is allow- ^ question of circumstances; and though I able. would not subject Philosophy to Rhetoric more than Gregory the Great would Theology to Grammar, still, without an adequate necessity, I should always rec- ommend you, in your English compositions, to prefer a word of Saxon to a word of Greek or L.atin derivation. It would be absurd to sacrifice meaning to its mode of utterance, — to make thought subordinate to its expression ; but still where no higher authority,, no imperious necessity, dispenses with philological precepts, these, as themselves the dictates of reason and philosophy, ought to be punctiliously obeyed. " It is not in language," says Leibnitz, "that we ought to play the puritan;"- but it is not either for the I)hiloso])her or the theologian to throw off all deference to the laws, of language, — to proclaim of their doctrines, " Hysteria tauta Turpe est graramaticis submittere coUa rapistris."* The general right must certainly be asserted to the philosopher of usurping a peculiar language, if requisite to express his peculiar analyses; but he ought to remember that the exercise of this right, as odious and suspected, is strictissimi juris, and that, to avoid tlie pains and penalties of grammatical recusancy, he must always be able to plead a manifest reason of philosophical necessity.* But ta return from this digression. 1 See above, p. 40.— Ed. ■■ Buchanan, Franciscannt, 1. 632. — ED. 2 Vnvorgr(i[fflich.e Geilanckenbetreffenddi)-. All- * Ovx '^M*'^ "' *'*' "^V '''Oi(j>5e ^(^opevovrfSi '^ibung utirl Verljesserung der Teutschen S/irnche. xiii' K6-/u>v inrripfTai, d\X' of Xoyot Oi TlHf Opera, (edit. Dut<^n8), vol. vi. pars ii. p. 13. rtpoj Sxnrfp oiKfrai. —Vlato.] [Thestetu'?, — Ed. p. 173 — ED.i [" Hao enim necessario extor Lect. XXI. METAPHYSICS. 281 Having, I say, recalled to your observation the primary distribu- tion of the mental pha^nomena into these three classes, — a distribu- tion which, you will remember, I statele faculties as there are ultimate activities of nund; ys niany simple capacities as there aic ultimate passivities of mind ; and it is consequently manifest that a system of the mental jio'.vers «mii never be final and couijilete. until we have accomplished a full and accurate analysis of the various funda- mental phieiJomena of our internal lite. And what does such an rjuuuda suut *. .s«pieii|t', quasi monstra nioii- iiujrm'nms."" Scalijjer. InAriit. Dr Ptatu., liU Ktris, absinda abKurdis. incptii iiicjitis. iit ii 1 [f l-'W'. <'d. l.V)i'i. — Ki> i inscititr minutiKsiinaf latobras ve^tigntasi ex- 36 282 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXI analysis suppose? Manifestly three conditions: 1°, That no phae- nomenon be assumed as elementary wliich can Three rules of psy- ^^ resolved into simpler principles ; 2% That cliological analysis. i i i i i no elementary phnenomenon be overlooked ; «nd, 3°, That no imaginary element be interpolated. These are the rules Avhich ought evidently to govern our psy- chological analyses. I could show, however, These have not been ^^lat these have been more or less violated in ©serve \ p. > everv attempt that has been made at a determi- gists. •' 1 nation of the constituent elements of thought ; for philosophers have either stopped shoit of the primary phae- nomenon, or they have neglected it, or they have substituted another in its room. I decline, however, at present, an articulate criticism of the various systems of the human powers proposed by philosophei-s, as this Avould, in your present stage of advance- ment, tend rather to confuse than to inform you, and, moreover, would occupy a longer time than we are in a condition to afford : I therefore pass on to a summary recapitulation of the distribution of the cognitive faculties given in last Lecture. It is evident that such a distribution, as the result of an analysis, cannot be appre- ciated until the analysis itself be understood ; and this can only be understood after the discussion of the several faculties and ele- mentary ])hjenomena has been carried through. You are, there- fore, at present to look upon this scheme as little more than a table of contents to the various chapters, under which the phenomena of knowledge will be considered. I now only make a statement of what I shall subsequently attempt to prove. The principle of the distribution is, hoAvever, of such a nature that I flatter myself it can, in some measure, be comprehended even on its first enuncia- tion : for the various elementary phtenomena and the relative fJicul- ties which it assumes, are of so notorious and necessary a char- acter, that they cannot possibly be refused ; and, at the same time, they are discriminated from each other, both by obvious contrast, and by the fact that they are manifested in different individuals, each in very various proportions to each other. If a man has a faculty of knowledge in general, and if the con- tents of his knowledge be not all innate, it is vo u ion o pecjai evident that he must have a special faculty of Faculties of Kuowl- ... edge from Conscious- acquiring it, — an acquisitive faculty. But to ness. acquire knowledge is to receive an object within 1. The Acquisitive ^^^ sphere of our consciousness; in other words, Faculty. ^ . . . i i . • j to present it, as existmg, to the knowmg nnnd. This Acquisitive Faculty nuiy, therefore, be also called a Recep- ].ECT. XXI. METAPHYSICS. 283 tive or Presentative Faculty. The latter term, Presentative Fac- ulty^ I use, as you will see, in contrast and correlation to a HeprC' sentative Faculty^ of which I am immediately to speak. That the acquisition of knowledge is an ultimate pha^nomenon of mind, and an acquisitive faculty a necessary condition of the pos- session of knowledge, will not be denied. This faculty is the faculty of experience, and aifords us exclusively all the knowledge we }>o88es8 a posteriori, that is, our whole contingent knowledge, — our whole knowledge of fact. It is subdivided into two, according as its object is external or internal. In the former case it is called External Perception, or simply Perception ; in the latter, Internal Perception, Reflex Perception, Internal Sense, or more properly, Self-Consciousness. Reflection, if limited to its original and cor- rect signification, will be an expression for self-consciousness atten- tively applied to its objects, — that is, for self-consciousness con- centrated on the mental phaMiomena. In the second place, the faculty of acquisition enables us to know, — to cognize an object, when actually II. The CoDserva- p,.f.j^e„ted within the sphere of external or of five Faculty. ^ . t> • > internal consciousness. But if our knowledge of that object terminated when it ceased to exist, or to exist within the sphere of consciousness, our knowledge would hardly deserve the name; for what we actually perceive by the faculties of external and of internal perception, is but an infinitesimal part of the knowl- edge which we actually i)Ossess. It is, tlierefore, necessary that we have not only a faculty to acquire, but a faculty to keep posses- sion of knowledge ; in short, a Conser\'ative or Retentive P"'aculty. This is Memory strictly so denominated ; that is, the simple power of retaining the knowledge we have once acquired. This conserva- tion, it is evident, must be performed without an act of conscious- ness, — the immense ])ro))ortion of our acaratus of a posteriori, adventitious, knowl- edge • it possesses necessarily a small complement of a priori, native, cognitions. These a priori cognitions are the laws or con- ditions of thought in general ; consequently, the laws and condi- tions under which our knowledge a posteriori is possible. Lect. XXI. METAPHYSICS. 28.5 By tlie way, you will please to recollect these two relative ex- pressions. As used in a psychological sense, a Knowledge a prion knowledge « ^>06'ier/o>-* is a synonym for knowl- and a jwsUriori, ex- . . , „ * . , jj^jjjg^j edge empirical, or trom experience; and, con- sequently, is adventitious to the mind, as sub- sequent to, and in consequence of, the exercise of its faculties of observation. Knowledge a priori, on the contrary, called likewise native, pure, or transcendental knowledge, embraces those princi- ples which, as the conditions of the exercise of its faculties of observation and thought, are, consequently, not the result of that exercise. True it is that, chronologically considered, our a 2)riori is not antecedent to our a posteriori knowledge ; for the internal conditions of experience can only operate when an object of expe- rience has been presented. In the order of time our knowledge, therefoi-e, may be said to commence with experience, but to have its principle antecedently in the mind. Much as has been written on this matter by the greatest jihilosophers, this Relation of our all-important doctrine has ncser been so well knowledge to experi ^^^^^^ ^^^ .^^ ^^^ unknown sentence of an old ence, — now best ex- . . prei^ged. J>nd HOW forgottcu thinker: "Cognitio omnis a mente primam originem, a sensibus exordium habet primum.'" These few words are worth many a modern volume of ])hilosophv. You will observe the felicity of the ex- pression. The whole sentence has not a superfluous word, and yet is absolute and complete. JI<'»s, the Latin term for vous, is the best possible word to express the intellectual source of our a priori pnnciples, and is well opposed to sejisus. But the happiest con- trast is in the terms ori(/o and exordium; the former denoting pri- ority ill the order of existence, the latter priority in the order of time. But to return whence I have diverged. These a priori prlnci- ]il('s form one of the most remarkable and jK'culiar of the mental phasnomena; and we must class them under the head of a common power or ])nnciple of the mind. This jiower, — what I would call the Regulative Faculty, — concspon- . .v^no fjni losophers, in regard to which he has, indepen- dently of thi.s, been guilty of various mistakes. As to Brown, again, he holds the simple doctrine of a representative percep- tion, — a doctrine which Reid does not seem to have understood • and this opinion he not only holds himself, but attributes, with one or two exceptions, to all modern philosophers, nay, even to Reid himselfj whose philosophy he thus maintains to be one great blun- der, both in regard to tlie new truths it professes to establish, and to the old errors it professes to refute. It turns out, however, that Brown in relation to Reid is curiously wrong from first to last, — not one of Reid's numerous mistakes, historical and philosophical, does he touch, far less redargue ; whereas in every point on which he assails Reid, he himself is historically or piiilosophically in error. I meant to have first shown you Reid's misrejjresentations of the opinions of other philosophers, and then to have shown you Brown's misrepresentations of Reid. I find it better to effect both purposes together, which, having now prepared you by a statement of Brown's general error; it will not, I hope, be difficult to do. 1 Sec the Author's Discussions, p. 39, et seq., and his Supplementary Dissertations to Reid, Notes B and C — Ed. Lect. XXI. METAPHYSICS. 289 This being premised, I now proceed to follow Reid through his his- torical view and scientific criticism of the vari- Keid'8 historical qus theories of Perception ; and I accordingly view of the theories .,1 ,1 -i-ji , . t ^i • 1 ,. „ ^. „„ commence with the Jrlatonic. In this, how- ot I erception. Ihe _ ' riatoiiif. ever, he is unfortunate, for the simile of the cave which is applied by Plato in the seventh book of the Rei)ul)lic, was not intended by him as an illustration of the mode of our sensible perception at all. " Plato," says Reid,' " illus- trates our manner of perceiving the objects of sense, in this man- ner. He supposes a dark subterraneous cave, in which men lie bound in such a manner that they can direct their eyes only to one part of the cave : far behind, there is a light, some rays of which come over a \\ all to that part of the cave which is before the eyes of" our prisoners. A number of persons, variously employed, pass between them and the light, whose shadows are seen by the pris- oners, but not the persons themselves. "•In this manner, that philosopher conceived that, by our senses, we )»erceive the shadows of thinus onlv, and not thini^s themselves. He seems to have borrowed his notions on this subject from the Pythagoreans, and they very probably from Pythagoras himself If we make allowance for Plato's allegorical genius, his sentiments oil this subject correspond very well with those of his scholar Aristotle, and of the Peripatetics. The shadows of Plato may very well represent the species and phantasms of the Peripatetic school, and the ideas and impressions of modern philosopliers." Ileid's account of the Platonic theory of perception is utterly wrong.'- Plato's simile of the cave he com- Heid wrong in ro- plctcly misap]>rehends. By liis cave, images, gani to the riatonic and shadows, this philosojiher intended only to eorjr o pci-cp]) lon, illustrate the s?reat principle of his philosophy, and misapiiii'lR-iKis . Piato'8 simile oi the that the Sensible or ectypal world, — the world cavp. plirenomenal, transitory, ever becoming but never being (tiet yiyi'o/Ltci'oi', fxr^SeTrore oi')^ stands to the noetic or archetypal world, — the world suljstaiitial, permanent (0VTW9 w), ill tlie same relation of comparative unreality, in which the shadows of tlie images of sensible existences themselves, stand to the objects of which they are the dim and distant aer- cipient mind, — he, on the contrar}-, maintained, in the I'imceus,- that, in vision, a percii)ient power of the sensible soul sallies out towards the object, the images of Avhich it carries back into the eye, — an opinion, by the way, held likewise by Empedocles,'* Alexander of 1 These lines are fjiven in tlie Author's note, rfo, lib. v. t'f. Empedodis Fra^mentn, ed. Sturz, ReifP>i Works, p. 262, and occur in the Carmen p. 410. Stallbaum, In Plat. Timm/»i. p. 45. ad M. Antonium Flaminium et Galeatium Flori- Burateleus tlius s^f ates Plato's doctrine of vis- montium — Opera, Venet., 1584, f. 206. — Ed. ion : " Visionem Plato fieri sentlt ut oculi ex 2 P. 45. — Ed. se naturam quandam lucidam habeant, ex 3 " Visionem fieri per extramii^ionnn " (as qna visi\i radii effluentes in extremam seris opposed to iha intromissionem of Democritiis, lucem ohjecta? ivi imaginem adducant, et in Leucippus, and Epicurus), " ait Enipedocles, * animo reprasentent, ex qua reprasentatione cui et Hipparchus astipulatus est, ita, ut radii fit visus '" — Ibid. Of Leo Hebr«us, De Amore, exeuntes quasi manu comprehendant ima- Dial. iii. Clialcidius, In Timaum Platonif, p, gines rerura qvx visionis sint effectrices." 388 See Buriiardus, Seminaruim PhilosophxA Gabriel Buratellus, An Visio Fiat Extramiiten- PUitonirrf, p. 922. — Ed Lect. XXI. METAPHYSICS. 291 Aphrodisias,^ Seneca,- Chalfidius,'' Euclid,^ Ptolemy/ Alchindus,'^ Ga- len,' Lactantius,'* and Lord Monboddo.'' The account wliich Reid gives of the Aristotelic doctrine is, likewise, very erroneous. "Aristotle seems to Keid'. acco.int of j^^^.^. thought that the soul consists of tM«» the Aristotelic doc- jrj,,^. parts, or rather that we have two souls, — the animal and the rational ; or, as he calls them, the soul and the intellect. To the /!)'.■<( belong the senses, memory and imagination; to the la.'it, judgment, opinion, belief, and reasoning. The first we have in common with brute animals; the last is pecu- liar to man. The animal soul he held to be a certain form of the body, which is inseparable from it, and j)erishes at death. To this soul the senses belong ; and he defines a sense to be that which is capable of receiving the sensible forms or species of objects, without any of the matter of them ; as wax receives the form of the seal without any of the matter of it. The forms of sound, of color, of taste, and of other sensible qualities, are, in a manner, received by the senses. It seems to be a necessary consequence of Aristotle's doctrine, that bodies are constantly sending forth, in all directions, as many different kinds of forms without matter as they have dif- ferent sensible qualities ; for the forms of color must enter by the eye, the forms of sound by the ear, — and so of the other senses. This, accordingly, was maintained by the followers of Aristotle, though not, as far as I know, expressly mentioned by himself. They disputed concerning the nature of those forms of species, whether they were real beings or nonentities ; and some held them to be of an intermeii's ri'for to tlii' (|irol)iil>ly .>^liiiri- .')(vol. v p. 21.'), edit. CliartitT). — Kr>. oii>) Prnh:r„iairra, ii. (edit Aid.)— Kd. 1784), where Lactantiiif, moreover, denies tl»» ■^ ^"nturaliiim Qua-stionum, lib. i c 5-7. noccssity of visual spccii-.s. Stn- Cotiimbricon. '^^ se.e, an abovi", mul o(>ni|iari' .stnllbaumN note 3 In TimfFiiin P/ntnnh, p. 338. Cf. p. 329 ft ^„ ,,„. r(,/i/7i». p. 4.'.. H. — Kl.. sfq., (edit. Levdi'ii. lt)17). — El). 4 See ('oiiiinbrici'use.s, /„ I)r A„ima, lib. ii. " Antlf.m yhlapJii/sirs, vol. i. book ii rhap c. vii. , propter quod, eis approximati.s. statim sequi- tur vitio, a quocunque sit (fit?) effective. Et similiter est de aliis Sensibus" Durandus thus reduces .^pcriVs to the physical impression of the external object, which is unknown to the mind, and not like the object.] [See Conimbricenses, In De Anima,\ih. ii. c. vi. Q. 2, p. 188. The Conimbricenses refer besides to Occam, Gregory (Arimiiiensis), and Biel, among the schoolmen, as concurring with Durandus on this point. The doctrine of species was also rejected by the Nominalists. See Toletus, In De Aninm, lib. ii. c. xii f 109, pera.t ii p 3-3t- (edit. 165P). Cf Ihid.. p. 33?, and t. ;. t>. 443, t. iii p. 467; Piccolomiui. Si Phys.. p. 133S, Zabarella, De Rebus Naturatibus, p i89- Libe: De Speciehus Intelligibilious ; Deviuemand.A Seeptirismus Debellntus, C. xxiv. p. 165.1 !*-■- Reid's Works, p. 827. note —En.] Lect. XXI. METAPHYSICS. 293 maintained by several of liis (ircek eonunentators, — as the Apliro- disian,^ Michael Ephesius,^ and Philoponus.'' In fact, Aristotle ap- pears to have held the same 'v ala^rwv iynara- KeifiiJLara yivfrai tv ti/jl7v. OiiSe yap ttji/ apxv" KOTO (rx^f^^ ^j tj rwy alff^Tuv avri- Krt^ffii. Tltuov yap (TxhH-"' "^^ KfVKhi/, fi UKus rh xpt^/^o" ^ irolof l' 4v illMP TXTKOV KoKoVfJifVOV /HfToOf- povTfs Todvofia.] l<'t". Ihit/., lib. i. f. KiV': '\wh tUv 4vfpy(twt> 7WV trfpl to ^ia^ra, olot' Tirwoy Tifo Ka\ iLva^wypat>7)fia iv toS Trpu>T; cf. also th« Fame, In De .4riimn, lib. ii. c. vi. f f. 18a, 8.3", aS" %'>, (edit. Aid. 15.34); aud by Simon t>imoniu». In De Memoria ft nfminifcfntia, c i. ^ 12, 14, p. 290-91, (edit. 156 Kara rr)v Stvrtpav Svvaiiiv ov yap ira^ivra' ovSt im' ivayrias i^fai? ixfra&aKKov dfioiov- rat avrtf). 'AAXa rb tlSos ax/rov Sf^dufyov «vx iis i'Atj aiiTov •yty6ixfyov, ouSt yap Ah/wtj yivfrai i) aia^ais Sf^ojueVjj rb flSos rov at(TdT]rov. Alb ovSt irciiTx^iy oiiSt aWoiuva- Aai Kvpiws Ktyfrai, aWa rhv Kbyov rov fibous yvtaiar iKws iy iavrfj Sfxafifyr]. "Cia- Tffp yap rby K-qpbv ipa/xfy Svyafifi (Ivai iiirfp rbv SaKrvKioy. Ai6ri ira^ooy inr' aiirov ylyf- rai OTTfp 4ariv iK(ivo% iyfpytia- oii rrjv uAt/i' ouToG Sf^d/xtvos, oAAo u6yoy to tlSos. Ovrw Kol r) aXabT)(Tis ira^ovaa virb rwy aicr^ruy TO €'57/ aurwv acTw/xarwi ava/xaTrfrai. Aia- (pfpfi Sf, iiri 6 fxfy Kripbs avrbs v\rt yiytrai rov fiSovs rov ty r SaKrvKity- rj 5' atadrj— , oAAa oi) Si '6\oy ainov SfX^Toi rb fiSos, oAA' ^irnroA^s- i) fxty rni oiVi^TWTj Svvau.1% oKrj Si oAtjs (,"a'T«(f^y Tos rwv alcTdrtTwy iwofidrrfrai iSfas. <"•". 76irf., c. xii. t. 121. In this parage Philo|Kv uu.t clost^ly approximates to the dcKtriiie of the riatoiiists, as expounded by Pri^cianun Lydn.-;, according to which, jHTCcptidn take's place on condition of an a^^similation between tlie living organ and the object, by means of forms and immaterial rea-^ons (koto t^ tiSif Kol rovs \ityovs &yfv ttjs uAtjj. ) .See M*tu- , ^ • • of Perception. C artcs s notions or the manner ot our perceivuig external objects, from -which a concern to do jus- tice to the merit of that great reformer in philoso]»hy has led me to digress, he took it for granted, as the old philosophers had done, that what we immediately perceive must be either in the mind itself, or in the brain, to Avhich the mind is immediately present. The impressions made upon our organs, nerves, and brain, could be notliing, according to his philosophy, but various modifications of extension, figure, and motion. There could be nothing in the brain like sound or color, taste or smell, heat or cold ; tliese are sensations in the mind, which, by the laws of the union of soul and body, are raised on occasion of certain traces in the brain ; and although he gives the name of ideas to these traces in the brain, he dots not think it necessary that they should be j)erfectly like to the things which they represent, any moi:e than that Avords ov signs .should re- semble the things they signify. But, says he, tliat we may follow the received opinion as far as is possible, we may allow a slight resemblance. Thus we know that a print in a book may represent houses, temples, and groves ; and so far is it from being necessai-y that the print should be perfectly like the thing it represents, that its perfection often requires the contrar}-; for a circle must often be represented by an ellipse, a square by a rliombus, and so of other things. ........... " The writings of Des Cartes have, in general, a remarkable de- gree of perspicuity ; and he undoubtedly intended that, in this par- ticular, his philosophy should be a perfect contrast to that of Aristotle; yet, in what he has said, in different parts of his writ- ings, of our perceptions of external objects, there seems to be some obscurity, and even inconsistency ; whether owing to his having liad different opinions on the subject at different times, or to the diftic'ulty he found in it, I will not pretend to say. "There are two points, in jiartioular, wherein I cannot reconcile him to himself: the Jirst, regarding the place of the ideas or images of external objects, a\ hich are the immediate objects of perception ; the second, with regard to the veracity of our extenial senses. " As to the Jirsf, he sometimes places the ideas of material objects in the brain, not only when they are perceived, but when they are remembered or imagined ; and this has always been held to be the Cartesian doctrine ; yet he sometimes says, that we are not to con- ceive the images or traces in the brain to be perceived, as if there Lect. XXI. M E T A PHYSICS. 295 were eyes in the brain; these traces are only occasions on which, by the laws of the union of soul and body, ideas are excited in the mind ; and, tlierefore, it is not necessary tliat there should be an exact resemblance between the traces and the things represented by them, any more than that words or signs should be exactly like the things signilied by them. "These two opinions, I think, cannot be reconciled. For, if the images or ti'aces in the brain are perceived, they must be the objects of perception, and not the occasions of it oidy. On the other hand, if they are only the occasions of our perceiving, they are not perceived at all. Descartes seems to have hesitated be- tween the two opinions, or to have passed from the one to the other."! I have quoted to you this passage in order that I may clearly exhibit to you, in the first place, Keid's misrepresentations of Des- cai.yis; and, in the second. Brown's misrepresentation of Reid. In regard to the former, Keid's jirincipal error consists in charg- , ing Descartes with vacillation and inconsistency, Cardinal principle ,jjj,| },^ possibly attributing to him the opinion of the Cartesian plii- . /» i • i i losophy. ^"^^ ^"^ representative object or which the mind is conscious in perception, is soniething material, — something m the brain. This arose from his ignorance of the fundamental princii»le of the Cartesian doctrine.- By those not possessed of the key to the Cartesian theory, there are many j>assages in tlie writings of its author wliich, taken by themselves, might naturally be construed to import, that Descartes supposed the mind to be conscious of certain motions in the brain, to which, as well as to the modifications of the intellect itself, he a)>plies the terms imaqc and idea. Keid, who did not understand the Carte- sian })hilosophy as a system, was j)uzzled by these superficial ambi- guities. Not aware that the cardinal point of that system is, that mind and body, as essentially oj>]iosed, are naturally to each other as zero; and that their mutual intercourse can, therefore, only be su])ernatura]ly maintained by the concourse of the Deity, Keid was led into the error of attributing, by possibility, to Descartes, tlie opinion that the soul was immediately cognizant of material images in the brain. But in the Cartesian theory, mind is only con.scious of itself; the afifections of body may, by the law of union, be proximately the occasions, but can never constitute the immc- 1 /ntf7/fr no one was more conscious than himself. " Tlu' iiifiit," he says, in a letter to Dr. James Gregory, " of what you are pleased to call my philosophy, lies, I think, chiefly in having called in (luestitm the common theory of ideas or images of things in the miml being the only objects of thought — a theory founded on natural jirijudices, and so univer- .sally received as to be interwoven with the structure of language." "I think,"' he adds, "there is hardly anything that c:ui be called science in the ]>hilosoj»hy of tin iniiitl. \\ liidi docs not follow wit.\j 36 298 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXU. ease from the detection of this prejudice."' The attempts, there fore, among others, of Priestley, Gleig, Beasley,^ and, though last not least, of Brown, to slio\v that Reid in his refutation of the previous theoiy of perception, was only fighting with a shadow — was only combating philoso2:)hers who, on the point in ques- tion, really coincided with himself, would, if successful, prove not merely that the philosophical reputation of Reid is only based upon a blunder, but would, in fact, leave us no rational conclusion short, not of idealism only, but of absolute skepticism. For, as 1 have shown you, Brown's doctrine of jjcrception, as founded on a refusal of the testimony of consciousness to our knowledge of an external world, virtually discredits consciousness as an evidence at all; and in place of his system being, as its author confidently boasts, the one "which allows the skeptic no place for his foot — no fulcrum for the instrument he uses," — it is, on the contrary, pei'haps the system which, of all others, is the most contradictory and suicidal, and which, consequently, may most easily be devel- oped into skepticism. The determination of this point, is, there- fore, a matter affecting the ^ital interests of philosophy ; for if Reid, as Brown and his coadjutors maintain, accomplished nothing, then is all philosophical reputation empty, and philosophy itself a dream. In preparing you for the discussion that was to folloAv, I stated to you that it would not be in my power to main- ei p 11 osop iica - tain Reid's absolute immunity from error, either ly and hi8tonca!ly,uot . . . . ..... free from errors. "^ ^^^^ philosophical or in his historical views; on the contrary, I acknowledged that I found him frequently at fault in both. His mistakes, however, I hope to show you, are not of vital importance, and I am confident their ex- posure Avill only conduce to illustrate and confiim the truths which he has the merit, though amid cloud and confusion, to have estab- lished. But as to Brown's elaborate attack on But Brown's criti- j^^^.^^]^ — ^]^[^^ J 1^.^^.^ j^q hesitation in asserting, •ijni of Reid wliolly , , ^ , . . , , ^J.^^^^„ to be not only unsuccesshil in its results, but that in all its details, without a single, even the most insignificant, exceotion, it has the fortune to be regularly and curiously wrong. Reid h^d errors enough to be exposed, but Brown has not been so lucky as to stumble even upon one. Brown, however, sung his paean as if his victory were complete ; and, what 1 Cotkcted Work^, p. 88. — Ed. 7th edit. ; Beasley, Search of Truth in the Science 2 See Priestley, Examination of Reid, Beat- of the Human Mind, book ii. c. iii. p. 123 tt tie, and Oswald, sect, iii.: Bishop Gleig, art. seg. Cf. cc. ir. v- vi. (Philadelphia, U. St atrtnphysia Ennjc. Briiaii , vol xiv. p 604, 1822.) — Ed. Lect. XXII. METAPHYSICS. 299 is singular, he found a general chorus to his song. Even Sir James Mackintosh talks of Brown's triumphant exposure of Reiki's marvel- lous mistakes. To enable you provisionally to understand Reid's errors, I showed you how, holding himself the doctrine of an General source of intuitivB or immediate perception of external Keid's errors, — wliich , . i tt i i -, . however, are compar- ^^'/'l^'^' '^<^/^^^ "<^t SCO that the COUUter doctmie ativeiy unimportant. of a mediate or representative perception ad- mittets the simpler form of a representative ])erception. In the second place, he is wrong in reversing Reid's whole doctriius by attributing to him the same opinion on this ])oint which he himself maintains. In the third })lace, he is wrong in thinking that Reid only attackeil the more complex, and not the more dangerous, form of the repre- sentative hypothesis, and did not attack the hypothesis of rejire- sentation altogether. In the fourth place, he is wrong in supposing tliat modern philosophers in general held the simpk-r form of the representative hy))oth«'sis, and that Ifeid was, therefore, mistaken in s\i])p historical a< ■ ''"' "I"i"ons oil IVrccptKUi liel.l by previous count of philoKophicat ])liilosophers. TIlis liistoHcal account is with- opinionH on I'.rci'i.- ,„,, ,„.,j,.,.^ .,,,,| ;,t oiicc redundant and imperfect. tion. fP,, - . , ■ 1 he most important (loctnne.H are altogether omitted ; of others the stati'iiieiit is repeated over and over in different places, and yet never compU'tely dune at last; no clirono 300 MKTAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIL logical siiccossion, no scientific arrangement, is followed, and with all this the survey is replete with serious mistakes. Without, there- fnre, following Reid's confusion, I took up the opinions on which he touched in the order of time. Of these the first was the doctrine of Plato ; in regard to which I showed you, that Reid was singu- iarly erroneous in mistaking what Plato meant by the simile of the cave. Then followed the doctrine of Aristotle and his school, in relation to whom he was hardly more <'orrect. Did oui* time allow me to attempt a history of the doctrines on perception, I could show you that Aristotle must be presumed to have held the true opinion in regard to this fiiculty ; ' l)ut in resj)ect to a considerable number of the Aristotelic schoolmen, I could distinctly prove, not only that the whole hypothesis of species was by them rejected, but that, their hitherto neglected theory of perception is, even at this liour, the most philoso])hical that exists.- I have no hesitation in saying that, on this point, they are incomparably superior to Reid : for while lie excuses Brown's misinterpretation, and, indeed, all but annihilates his own doctrine of perception, by placing that power in a line with imagination and memory, as all tacultics immediately cognizant of the reality ; they, on the contrary, distinguish Perception as a faculty intuitive. Imagination and Memory as faculties representa- tive of their objects. Following Reid in his descent to modern philosophers, I showed you how, in consequence of his own want of a systematic knowledge of the Cartesian philosophy, he had erroneously charged Descartes with vacillation and contradiction, in sometimes placing the idea of a representative image in the mind, and sometimes jilacing it in the brain. Such is the error of Reid in relation to Descartes, which I find it necessary to acknowledge. But, on the other Reid right in su{>- hand, I must defend him on another point from podngthat Descarte« Brown's charge of having not only ignorantlv held the more complex . "- "^. i i hypothesis of Repre- misuiidcrstood, but of having exactly reversed, sentativererception. the notorious doctrine of Descartes ; in suppos- ing that this philosopher held the more complex hypothesis of a representative perce|)tion, Avhich views in the repre- sentative image something different from the mintion. Not aware that it was possible to main- tain a doctrine of percej)tion in which the idea was not really distinguished from its cognition, and yet to hold that the mind had no immediate knowledge of external things: Reid su])poses, in the first i)lace, that Arnauld, in rejecting the hypothesis of ideas, as representative existences, really distinct from the contemplative act of percej>tion, coincided with him in viewing the material reality, as the immediate object of that act; and, in the second, that Ar- nauld again deserted this opinion, when, with the i)hilosophers, he maintained that the idea, or act of the mind representing the external reality, and not the external reality itself, was the imme- diate object of percei)tion. Aniaulifs theory is one and indivisi- ble; and, as such, no part of it is identical with Reid's, Reid's con- fusion, here as elsewhere, is exjilained l>y the tircumstance, that la- had never speculatively conceived the possibility of the simplest modification of the representative hypothesis. He saw no medium between rejecting ideas as something different from thought, and his own doctrine of an in\me5. [See DisrussioHS. y>. 77. — Kd.J 2 Ibid., p. 296. B04 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXII. Re'id was, therefore, wrong, and did Arnauld less than justice, in viewing hi.s theory " as a weak attempt to reconcile two inconsistent doctrines : " he was wrong, and did Arnauld more than justice, in supposing that one of these doctrines was not incompatible with his own. The detection, however, of this error only tends to manifest more clearly, how just, even when under its influence, was Reid's appreciation of the contrast, subsisting between his own and Ar- nauld's opinion, considered as a whole ; and exposes more glaringly Brown's general misconception of Reid's philosophy, and his present gross misrepresentation, in aftirming that the doctrines of the two philosophers Avere identical, and by Reid admitted to be the same. Locke is the philosopher next in order, and it is principally against Reid's statement of the Lockian doctrine of Keid on Locke. . . Kleas, that the most vociferous clamour has been raised, by those who deny that the cruder form of the representative hypothesis was the one prevalent among philosophers, after the decline of the scholastic theory of species ; and who do not see that, though Reid's refutation, from the cause I have already no- ticed, was ostensibly directed only against that cruder foi'm, it was virtually and in effect levelled against the doctrine of a represen- tative perception altogether. Even supposing that Reid was wrong in attributing this particular modification of the representative hypothesis to Locke, and the philosophers in general, — this would be a trivial error, provided it can be shown that he was opposed to every doctrine of perception, except that founded on the fact of the duality of consciousness. But let us consider whether Reid be really in error when he attributes to Locke the opinion in question. And let us first hear the charge of his opponents. Of these, I shall only particularly refer to the first and last, — to Priestley and to Brown, — thougli tlie same argument is confidently main- tained by several other philosophers, in the interval between the publications of Priestley and of Brown. Priestley asserts that Reid's whole polemic is directed against a ])hantom of his own creation, and that the doc- Priestiey quoted on ^,.5,^^^ ^^. .^^^.^^ ^^^^-^^^ j^^ conibats was never seri- Keid's view of Locke's <,pinion. ously maintained by any philosopher, ancient or modern. "Before," says Priestley, "Dr. Reid had rested so much upon this argument, it behooved him, I think, to have examined the strength of it a little more carefully than he seems to have done; for he appears to me to have suffered himself to be misled in the very foundation of it, merely by philosophei-s happening to call ideas images of external things ; an if this teas not known to he a figurative expressio7i denoting, not that the actual lirown coiiicidcM Lkct. XXII. METAPHYSICS. 305 shapes of things were delineated in the l)rain, or upon tlie mind, hut only that impressiens of some kind or other were conveyed to the mind by means of the organs of sense and their corresponding nerves, and that between these impressions and the sensations exist- ing in the mind, there is a real and necessary, though at present an unknown, connection."^ Brown does not go the length of Priestley ; he admits that, in more ancient times, the obnoxious opinion was prevalent, and allows even two among modern philosophers, Malebranche and Berkeley, to have been guilty or its adoption. Both Priestley and Brown stren- uously contend against Reid's interpretation of the doctrine of Locke, who states it as that phi- with Priestley in ceu- , , , . . . siiriiig Reid's view of losopher s opinion, "that images of external ob- Locke's opinion. jccts Were Conveyed to the brain; but whether he thought with Descartes [lege omnino Dr. Clarke] and Newton, that the images in the brain are perceived bj the mind, there present, or that they are imprinted on the mind it- self, is not so evident."^ ^ This, Brown, Priestley, and others, pronounce a flagrant misrep- resentation. Not only does Brown maintain that Locke never con- ceived the idea to be substantially different from the mind, as a material image in the brain ; but, that he never supposed it to have an existence apart from the mental energy of which it is the object. Locke, he asserts, like Arnauld, considered the idea ]>erceivchilosophical follower, Le Clerc. But if it be thus evident that Locke held neither the third form of representation, that lent to him by Brown, nor even the second; it follows, that Iieid did him anything but injustice, in supposing him to maintain that ideas are objects, either in the brain, or in the mind itself. Even the more material of these alternatives has been the one generally attributed to him by his critics,- and the one adopted from liini l)y his discii)les." Nor is tliis ti) be deemed .in opinion too monstrous to be entertained by so enlightened a j)hil<»s<)- pher. It was the common opinion of the age; the opinion, in jiar- ticular, held by the most illustrious ))hiIosophers, his countrymen and contemporaries, — by Newton, Clarke, Willis, ITook, (>ti'/ Descartes, Arnauld, and Locke, are the only jihilosophers in regard 1 Section 39. 3 Tucker's Li>/n o/i\aiure, i. pp. 16, IS, (2d - K. g. Sergeant anti Cousin. See Discus- edit.) See /)iicM«io»i.j, p. 80, note, t- — Eu sions, p. 80, note'; and Stewart. Phil. Essays, note H, Works, v. 422. — Ed. 4 See Discussions, p. 80. — Ed. 308 METAPHYSICS. Lect. JCXBt. to whom Brown attempts articulately to show, that Reid's account of their opinions touching the point at issue is Hrown passes over erroneous. But there are others, such as New- Keid's interpretation ^^^^ Clarke, Hook, Norris, whom Reid charged of the opinions of cer- • i i i t ^ • -i • -, tain philosophers. ^^1"! holdmg the obnoxious hy})othesis, and whom Brown passes over without an attempt to vindicate, although Malebranche and Berkeley be the only two philosophers in regard to whom he explicitly avows that Reid is correct. But as an instance of Reid's error. Brown alleges Hobbes ; and as an evidence of its universality, the authority of Le Clerc and Crousaz. ' To adduce Hobbes as an instance of Reid's misrepresentation of the " common doctrine of ideas," betrays, on Kut adduces Hobbes ^j^^ ^^^ of Brown, a total misapprehension of as an instance of . . , n Keid's error. ^'*^' f'ouditions oi the question ; or he lorgets that Hobbes was a materialist. The doctrine of representation, under all its modifications, is properly subordi- nate to the doctrine of a spiritual principle of thought ; and on the supposition, all btit universally admitted among philosophers, that the relation of knowledge implied the analogy of existence, it was mainly devised to explain the possibility of a knowledge by an immaterial subject, of an existence so disproportioned to its nature, as the qualities of a material object. Contending, that an imme- diate cognition of the accidents of matter, infers an essential identity of matter and mind. Brown himself admits, that the hypothesis of representation belongs exclusively to the doctrine of dualism ; - Avhilst Reid, assailing the hypothesis of ideas only as subverting the reality of matter, could hardly regard it as parcel of that scheme, which acknowledges the reality of nothing else. But though Hobbes cannot be adduced as a competent witness against Reid, he is, however, valid evidence against Brown. Hobbes, though a materialist, admitted no knowledge of an exter- nal world. Like his friend Sorbiere, he was a kind of material idealist. According to him, we know nothing of the qualities or existence of any outward reality. All that we know is the *' seeming," the "apparition," the "aspect," the " phaenomenon," the " phantasm," within ourselves ; and this subjective object, of which we are conscious, and which is consciousness itself, is nothing more than the " agitation " of our internal organism, determined by the unknown " motions," which are supposed, in like manner, to consti- tute the world without. Perception he reduces to Sensation. Memory and Imagination are faculties specifically identical with 1 See Discussions, p. 75. — Ed. 2 Lect. xxv. pp. 159, 160 (edit. 1830 ) Lr.cT. XXII. METAPHYSICS. 309 Sense, differing from it simply in the degree of their vivacity ; and tliis difference of intensity, witli TTobbes as with Hume, is the only discrimination between our dreaming and our waking thoughts. — A doctrine of perception identical with ileid's! ^ Dr. Brown at length proceeds to consummate his victory, by "that most decisive evidence, found not in treatises, read only by a few, but in the popular elementary works of science of the time, the general text-books of schools and i.e cierc and Crou- colleges." He quotes howcver, onlv two,— saz, referred to by , r» j i' t i^i ^ \ i- jjj.jj^„ the J^neumatolof/i/ ot l^e C lerc, and th»- Linion, discussed and icfcrred to its author by lieid himself Had Dr. ]5rown [uoceiMled fiom the tenth paragraph, which lie quotes, to the fourteenth, which he could not have read, he would have founlace, from the mode in which he (ntes I>e Clerc, his silence to the contrary, and the general tenor of his statement, Dr. Brown would lead us to 1 See DtMinmion^. ji. 81 — Ki> -' T.cot. wvii. ji. 174 (edit. 18.90.)— Ed. ylO METAPHYSICS. l^ECT. XXII. believe "that Le Clerc himself coincides in "this very philosophical view of perception." So far, however, from coinciding with Arnauld, he pronounces his opinion to be false ; controverts it upon very solid grounds; and in delivering his own doctrine touching ideas, though sufficiently cautious in telling us what they are, he has no hesitation in assuring us, among other things which they cannot be, that they are not modifications or essential states of mind. "iVwi est (idea sc.) modificatio aut essentia inentis : nam prsEterquam quod sentimus ingens esse discrimen inter ideas percep- tionem et sensationem ; quid habet mens nostra simile monti, aut innumeris ejusmodi ideis?" Such is the judgment of that authority to which Dr. Brown appealed as the most decisive."^ In Crousaz, Dr. Brown has actually succeeded in finding one example (he might have found twenty) of a Crousaz. philosopher, before Reid, holding the same theory of ideas with Arnauld and himself.^ 1 Pntumatnlogia, § 1. c. 5, § 10. — Ed. a S«e this subject further pursued ia Discuasions., p. 82 «» se? — Ed. LECTURE XXIII. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. I. I'ERCEPTION, — WAS REID A NATURAL REALIST? Iw our last Lecture, I couclucled the review of Reid'a Historical Account of tlie previous Opinions on Percep- Ends proposed ill the tiou. Ill entering upon tliis review, I proposed review of Heids ac- ^j^^. followiuo- ends. In the first place, to afford c-ount of opinions on " I'erceptioii. J*^"' "*^* Certainly a complete, but a competent, insight into the various tlieories on this subject; and this was sufficiently accomplished by limiting myself to the opinions toucheservations which he maki-s in reference to Keid ; and as tlicse observations, ad j? -i , , • e x> phers in general the cruder lorm ot the repre- doctnne of Represen- 1^ ' ^ " & i tative rerception. sentative hy})othesis of perception; and that he- was fully warranted in this attribution, is not only demonstrated by the dispi-oval of all the instances which Brown has alleged against Reid, but might be shown by a wholo crowd of examples, were it necessary to prove so undeniable a fact. In addition to what I have already articulately proved, it will be enough now simply to mention that the most learned and intelli- gent of the philosophers of last century might be quoted to the fact, tliat the opinion attributed by Reid to psychologists in general, Avas in reality the prevalent; and that the doctrine of Arnauld, which BroAvn supposes to have been the one universally received, was only adopted by the fcAV. To this point Malebranche, Leib- nitz, and Brucker, the younger Thomasius, 'S Gravesande, Genovesi, and Voltaire,^ are conclusive evidence. But a more important historical question remains, and one which even more affects the reputations of Reid anroper here to consider more particularly a matter of which The distinction of ^y(, },;ive hitherto treated only by the way, — T Intuitive and IJi-pre- ^, i-^^- x- £• t ' t i. Ti.'-*- , , mean the distinction ot Immediate or Intuitive, wntative Knowledfte, to be first considered. in coiitr.ist to Mediate or Ilepreseiitative Knowl- edge. This is a distinction of the most impor- tant kind, and it is one which has, however, been alnio.<;t wholly overlooked by philosophers. This oversight is less to be wondered at in those wlio allowed no immediate knowledge to the mind, except of its proper modes; in their systems the distinction, though it still subsisted, had little relevancy or eifect, as it did not dis- criminate the faculty by which we are aware of the presence of external objects, from that by which, when absent, these are imaged to the mind. In neither case, on this doctrine, are we conscious or immediately cognizant of the external reality, but only of the mental modi; through which it is represented. But it is more :istonishiiig that those who maintain that tlie mind is immediately percipient of external things, should not have signalized this dis- tinction ; as on it is established the essential difference of Percep- tion as a lliculty of intuitive. Imagination as a faculty of repre- sentative, knowledge. But the marvel is still more enhanced when we find that Reid and Stewart — (if tc tliem this opinion really belongs) so far from distinguishing Perception as an imme- diate and intuitive, from Imaginatit)n (.and uiition and tlic Memory of these philosophers), as a mediate or representative, f-iculty, — in language make them both equ.illy immediate. Reid's view of this Y^;^j ^^.j„ ,.,.^.„ii,.,.( ^,,,, ,.,.!,„. It ion I fbnn.'ily gave distinction ercepti()ii, I think the affirmation I made in my last Lecture is not unwarranted, — that a considerable section of the schoolmen were incomparably superior to Reid, or any modern philosopher, in their exposition of the true theory of that faculty. It is only wonderful that this, their doctrine, has not hitherto attracted attention, and obtained the celebrity it merits. Having now prepared you for the question concerning Reid, I shall proceed to its considei-ation ; and shall, in Order of the dis- ^y^^ ^^^^ place, statc the arguments that may be adduced in favor of the opinion, that Reid did not assert a doctrine of Natural Realism, — did not accept the fact of the duality of consciousness in its genuine integrity, but only deluded himself with the belief that he was originating a new or an important opinion, by the adoption of the simpler form of Rep- resentation ; and, in the secoiid ])lace, state the argtunents that may be alleged in support of the oj>posite conclusion, that his doctrine is in truth the simple doctrine of Natural Realism. But before proceeding to state the jirounds on which alone I conceive any presumj)tion can ))e founded, that 1. Grounds on f{ei,i j^ ,,,,t ^ Natur.il Realist, but, like Brown, ici ei may e ^ Cosmotlu'tic Mc.ilist, I shall state and refute supposed not a Nat- ural Realist. t'lc oTilv attempt made by Brown to support Brown's single ar- fhis, his interpretation of Reid's fundamental Kuinent in support of aoctriu*'. Biuwn's interpretation of Reid seems, the view that Reid . n i i i • i • i t was a (osmothetic "^ ^^'^t, not grounded on anything which he Idealist, refuted. fotuid iu Keid, but simply on his own assump- tion of what Reid's opinion must be. For, marvellous as it may sound. Hiown hardly seems to have con- templatetl the possibility of an imme(liate knowledge of anything beyond the sphere of self; and I should say, without qualification, that he liad never at all imagined this possibility, were it not for I'uliidanus, Cajetan, as distinguishinj; be- Reid's Works, Suppl Diss. H, p. 812. — See tween knowledge intuitive and ahstmrtive. above, L. xxi. p. 292, and L. xzii. p. 300. -^ See /* De Animn, lib. ii. c. vi. q. 3. p 108. and Ed.] 318 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIIL the single attempt he makes at a proof of the impossibility of Reid holding such an opinion, Avhen on one occasion Reid's lan- guage seems for a moment to have actually suggested to him the question : Might that philosopher not perhaps regard the external object as identical with the immediate object in percej^tion? In the following passage, you will observe, by anticipation, that by Sensation, which ought to be called Sensation Proper, is meant the subjective feeUng, — the pleasure or pain hivolved in an act of sensible perception ; and by Perception, which ought to be called Perception Proper, is meant the objective knowledge which we have, or think we have, of the external object in that act. "'Sen- sation,' says Dr. Reid, ' can be nothing else than Brown quoted. • • n ^ t it IS felt to be. Its very essence consists in being felt ; and when it is not felt, it is not. There is no difference between the sensation and the feeling of it ; they are one and the same thing.' But this is surely equally true of what he terms per- ception, which, as a state of the mind, it must be remembered, is, according to his own account of it, as different from the object perceived as the sensation is. We may say of the mental state of perception, too, in his own language, as indeed we must say of all our states of mind, whatever they may be, that it can be noth- ing else than it is felt to be. Its A'ery essence consists m being felt; and when it is not felt, it is not. There is no diiference between the perception and the feeling of it ; they are one and the same thing. The sensation, indeed, which is mental, is dif- ferent from the object exciting it, which we term material; but so also is the state of mind which constitutes perception ; for Dr. Reid was surely too zealous an opjjonent of the systems which ascribe everything to mind alone, or to matter alone, to consider the perception as itself the object perceived. That in sensation, as contradistinguished from perception, there is no reference made to an external object, is true ; because, when the reference is made, we then use the new term of perception ; but that in sensation there is no object distinct from that act of the mind by which it is felt, — no object independent of the mental feeling, is surely a very strange opinion of this philosopher; since what he terms per- ception is nothing but the reference of this very sensation to its external object. The sensation itself he certainly sup])oses to depend on the presence of an external object, which is all that can be understood in the case of -perception, when we speak of its objects, or, in other words, of those external causes to which we refer our sensations; for the material object itself he surely could not consider as forming a part of the perception, which is a state Lkct. XXin. METAPHYSICS. 819 of the mind alone. To be the object of perception, is nothing more than to be the foreign cause or occasion, on which tliis state of the mind directly or indirectly arises; and an object, in this only intelligible sense, as an occasion or cause of a certain subse- quent effect, must, on his own principles, be equally allowed to sensation. Though he does not inform us what he means by the term ohject., as peculiarly apjilied to perception, — (and, indeed, if he had explained it, I cannot but think that a great part of his system, which is founded on the confusion of this single word, as something different from a mere external cause of an internal feeling, must have fallen to the ground), — he yet tells us verv explicitly, that to be the object of perception, is something more than to be the external occasion on which that state of the mind arises which he terms perception ; for, in arguing against the opinion of a philosopher who contends for the existence of certain images or traces in the brain, and yet says, 'tliat we are not to conceive the images or traces in the brain to be perceived, as if there were eyes in the brain ; these traces are only occasions, on which, by the laws of the union of soul and body, ideas are excited in the mind ; and, therefore, it is not necessary that there should be an exact resemblance between the traces and the things repre- sented by them, any more than that words or signs should be exactly like the things signified by them,' he adds : ' These two opinions, I think, cannot be I'econciled. For if the images or traces in the brain are perceived, they must be the objects of perception, and not tJie occasions of it only. On the other hand, if they are only the occasions of our perceiving, they are not perceived at all.' Did Dr. Keid, then, suppose that the feeling, whatever it may be, which constitutes perception as a state of the mind, or, in short, all of which we aie conscious in jicrception, is not sti'ictly and exclusively mental, as much as all of which we are conscious in remembrance, or in h)ve, or hate; or did he wislj us to Ijelieve that matter itself, in any of its forms, is, or <;m be, a part of the phitnomena or states of the luiml, — a jiart, therefore, of tliat nuMital state or feeling which we term a ]icrcej)tion ? (^iir sensations, Hke our remcnil)raMccs or emotions, we refer to some cause or anteceilent. Tiie ditl'crcncc is, that in the one case we consider the feeling as having for its cause some previous feeling or state of the mind itself; in the other case we consider it as having for its cause soinctliing which is exteni;il to ourselves, and indepenilent of our transient feelings, — something wliicli, in con- sequence of former feelings suggeste' Its bemo: too evident to fear denial, proposition assumed. . . it is, on the contrary, not only not obtrusively trut', but, when examined, precisely the reverse of truth. In the first place, if we appeal to the only possible arbiter in the case, — the authority of consciousness, — we find In the first place, dis- ^j^.^^ cousciousuess givcs as an ultimate fiict, in proved by conscious- . , , t ,. /. . ^gj,g the unity of knowledge, the duality of exist- ence ; that is, it assures us that, in the act of perception, the percipient subject is at once conscious of something Avhich it distinguishes as a modification of self, and of something Avliich it distinguishes as a modification of not-self Reid, there- fore, as a dualist, and a dualist founding not on the hypotheses of ]»hiloso])hers, but on the data of consciousness, might safely maintain the fact of our immediate perception of external objects, without fear of involving himself iu an assertion of the identity of mind ami matter. But, hi the second place, if Reid did iKjt maintain this immediacy of perception, and assert the veracity of consci- 1 11 the second place, ousncss, he would at oiice be forced to admit Avould prove tlie con- ,i e ^^ -^ • i • /> ' , „ one or other ot the unitarian conclusions ot ma- verse ol wliut iSrown employs it to establish. terialisiii or idealism. Our knowledge of mind and matter, as substances, is merely relative ; they ;tre known to us only in their qualities ; and Ave can justify the postulation of two different substances, exclusively on the supposi- tion of the incompatibility of the double series of phienomena to coinliere in one. Is this supposition di.sproved ? — The presumption against dualism is .again decisive. Entities are not to be multii)lied "witlioiit necessity; a* jjlurality of princijiles is not to be assumed, where the pluienomena can be explained by one. In Brown's theory of ]ierce]ition, he abolishes the incompatibility of the two series; and yet his argument, as a dualist, for an immaterial ))rii)ciple of thought, |troceeds on the ground that this incomi)atibility subsists. ' This philoso|)her denies us an immediate knowledge of aught be- yonl6, 647. 41 822 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXUi. sophically absurd ; on the law of parciniony, a psychological unita- rianisni is established. To the argument, that the qualities of the object, are so repugnant to the qualities of the subject, of percep- tion, that they cannot be supposed the accidents of the same sub- stance, the unitarian — whether materialist, idealist, or absolutist, — has only to reply : — that so far from the attributes of the object being exclusive of the attributes of the subject, in this act, the hypothetical dualist himself establishes, as the fundamental axiom of his philosophy of mind, that the object known is universally identical with the subject knowing. The materialist may now derive the subject from the object, the idealist derive the object from the subject, the absolutist sublimate both into indifference^ nay, the nihilist subvert the substantial reality of either; — the hypothetical realist, so far from being able to i-esist the conclusion of any, in fact accords their assumptive premises to all. * So far, therefore, is Brown's ai'gument from inferring the conclu- sion, that Reid could not have maintained our immediate percep- tion of external objects, that not only is its inference expressly denied by Reid, but if properly applied, it would prove the very converse of what Brown employs it to establish. But there is a ground considerably stronger than that on which Brown has attempted to evince the identity of Reid's equalizing n . n, . . . • , , . m, . Perception and imagi- ^^^id s opuiion on perception With his own. This nation, a ground en ground is liis equalizing Perception and Imag- which he may be sup- ination. (Under Imagination, you will again posed not a Natural ■, j.\ t. t • i ^ n ■ t> n ^- j ^ ,. , observe, that 1 include Reid s Loncei)tion and Bealist. ' _ ' Memory.) Other philosophers brought percep- tion into unison with imagination, by making perception a faculty of mediate knowledge. Reid, on the contrary, has brought imagina- tion into unison with 2)erception, by calling iniagination a fliculty of immediate knowledge. Now as it is manifest that, in an act of imagination, the object-object is and can possibly be known only, mediately, through a representation, it follows that we must per- force adopt one of two alternatives, — we may either suppose that Reid means by immediate knowledge only that simpler form of representation from which the idea or tertium quid, intermediate between the external reality and the conscious mind, is thrown out, or that, in his extreme horror of the hypothesis But may be explained of ideas, he has altogether overlooked the fun- consistently with his elemental distinctioirof mediate and immediate doctrine of Natural . . . r- t • r- Ugajjgm, cognition, by which the faculties of perception and imagination are discriminated ; and that thus his very anxiety to separate more widely his own doctrine ot Lect. XXIII. METAPHYSICS. 323 intuition from the representative hypothesis of the philosophers, has, in fact, caused him ahnost inextricably to confound the two opinions. That tills latter alternative is greatly the more probable, I shall now proceed to show you ; and in doing this, I Positive evidence ■, ^ i • • i j.i ^ ^ ... ... J. .J XT X , beg you to keep in mind the necessarv contrasts that Keid held Natural . . . . . ". Keaiism. by M'hich an immediate or intuitive is oitposed to a mediate or representf^tive cognition. The question to be solved is, — Does Re id hold thnt in perception we immediately know the external reality, in its own qualities, as ex- isting ; or only mediately know them, through a representative modification of the mind itself? Tn tlie following proot^ I select only a few out of a great number of passages which might be ad- duced from the writings of Reid, in support of the same conclusions- I am, however, contident that they are sufficient ; and quutations longer or more numerous would tend rather to obs^^^ure than to illustrate. ' In tlic first place, knowledge and existence are then only con- vertible when the reality is known in itself; Application of ti.e f^j. tjien only can we say, that it is known conditions of Imme- i •. • , , . ' . ... ,. ^ „ , , . because it exists, and exists since it is known. diate Knowledge to _ _ Kc-id's statements. -^nJ this constitutes ail immediate or intuitive cognition, rigorously so called. Nor did Reid contemplate any other. "It seems admitted," he says, "as a first j)rinciple, by the learned and the unlearned, that what is really perceived must exist, and that to perceive Avhat does not exist, i» im]>ossible. So far the unlearned man and the philosopher aofree."^ In the second j)lace, philosophers agree, that the idea or repre- sentative object, in their tlieoiy, is, in tlio strictest sense, immedi- ately perceived. .\iid so Reid understands them. "I |ierceive not, says the Cartesian, the external ol)ject itself (so fiir he aijrees witli the Perijiatetic, and differs from the unlearned man) ; but I perceive an image, or form, or idea, in my own miml, ur in mv brain. I am certain of the existence of the idea, because I imme- diately perceive it.'"' In the third ])lace, j)hi]oso])hers concur in acknowledging that m.-mkind .at large believe that the external reality itself constitutes the immediate and only object of perception. So also lieid: "On the same ])nnciple, tlie unlearned man say.s, I j>ei"ceive the external object, and I ]ierceive it to exist." — "The vulgar undoubtedly 1 Sec this question discussed in Rfiil's 2 Works, p. 274. — Ed. Work}, Suppl. Dissert. -Note C, § ii. p. 819 et 3 Ibid. —Ed. srq. Compare Discussions, p. 58 et seq. — Ed. 824 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIU believe that it is the external object which we immediately per- ceive, and not a representative image of it only. It is for this reason that they look upon it as perfect lunacy to call in question the existence of external objects."^ — "The vulgar are firmly per- suaded that the very identical objects which they perceive, con- tinue to exist when they do not perceive them : and are no less firmly persuaded, that when ten men look at the sun or the moon they all see the same individual object."^ Speaking of Berkeley, — *'The vulgar opinion he reduces to this, that the very things which we perceive by our senses do really exist. This he grants."^ — "It is, therefore, acknowledged by this philosopher to be a natural instinct or prepossession, an universal and primary opinion of all men, that the objects which we immediately j^erceive by our senses are not images in our minds, but external objects, and that their existence is independent of us and our i^erception."* In the fourth place, all philosophers agree that consciousness has an immediate knowledge, and affords an absolute certainty of the reality, of its object. Reid, as we haA'e seen, limits the name of consciousness to self-consciousness, that is, to the immediate knowl- edge we j^ossess of the modifications of self; Avhereas, he makes perception the faculty by which we are immediately cognizant of the qualities of the not-self In these circumstances, if Reid either, 1°, Maintain, that his immediate perception of external things is convertible with their reality; or, 2°, Assert, that, in his doctrine of perception, the external reality stands to the percipient mind face to face, in the same immediacy of relation Avhich the idea holds in the representa- tive theory of the philosophers ; or, 3°, Declare the identity of his own opinion with the vulgar belief, as thus expounded by himself and the jDhilosophers ; or, 4°, Declare, that his Perception affords us equal evidence of the existence of external phaenomena, as his Consciousness affords us of the existence of internal; — in all and each of these suppositions, he would unambiguously declare him- self a natural realist, and evince that his doctrine of perception is one not of a mediate or representatiA-e, but of an immediate or intuitive knowledge. And he does all four. The first and second. — " We have before examined the reasons given by philosophers to proA^e that ideas, and not external objects, are the immediate objects of perception. We shall only here observe, that if external objects be perceived immediately" [and 1 Works, p. 274. —Ed. 3 Wcnks. p. 284. — Ed. 2 Ibid., p. 284. — Ed. ■* Ibid., p. 2'J9. — Ed. Lkct. XXm. METAPHYSICS. 325 he liad just before asserted for the hundredth time that they were 60 perceived], " we have the same reason to believe their existence as philosophers have to believe the existence of ideas, while they hold them to be the immediate objects of perception."^ The third. — Speaking of the perception of the external world, — " We have here a remarkable conflict betAveen two contradictory ojiinions, wherein all mankind are engaged. On the one side, stand all the vulgar, who are unpractised in pliilosophical researches, and guided by the uncorrupted primary instincts of nature. On the other side, stand all the philoso))hers, ancient and modern ; every man, without exception, who reflects. In this division, to my great humiliation, I find myself classed with the vulgar." - The fourth. — "Philosophers sometimes say that Ave perceive ideas, — sometimes that we are conscious of them. T can have no doubt of tlie existence of anything Avhich I either perceive, or of which I am conscious ; but I cannot find that I either j^erceive ideas or am conscious of them.'"^ Various other proofs of the same conclusion could be adduced ; these, for brevity, we omit. On these grounds, therefore, I am confident ihat Reid's doctrine of Perception must be pronounced a doctrine Oencral conclusion, £• t j. -j.- i j. r- -rt a. j.' i ot Intuition, and not of Kepresentation : and and caution. ' ^ ' tliough, as I have shown you, thci-e are cer- tainly some ])lausible arguments Avhich might be alleged in su}>- port of the opi)Osite conclusion ; still, these are greatly over- balanced by stronger positivq proofs, and by the general analogy of his j)hiloso2"»hy. And here I would impress ujion you an im- portant lesson. That Reid, a distinguished philosoplier, and even the founder of ati illustrious school, could be so greatly miscon- ceived, as that an eminent disciple of that school itself should actually reverse the fundamental jirinciple of his doctrine, — this may excite your wonder, but it ouglit not to move you to disj)nrage either the talent of the philosopher misconceived, or of the pliiloso- pher misconceiving. It ought, however, to prove to you the ])er- manent importance, not only in speculation, but in practice, of precise thinking. You ought never to rest content, so long as there is aught vague or indefinite in your reasonings, — so long as vou have not analvzed everA^ notion into its elements, and excluded the possibility of all lurking ambiguity in your expres- sions. One great, perhaps the one greatest advantage, resulting 1 Works, p. 446. Cf. pp. 263, 272. — Ed. 2 Works, p. 302. — Ed. 3 Works, p. 373. — Ed. 326 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIU from the cultivation of Philosophy, is the habit it induces of vigor- ous thought, that is, of allowing nothing to pass without a search- ing examination, either in your own speculations, or in those of others. We may never, perhaps, arrive at truth, but we can always avoid self-contradiction. I LECTURE XXIV. THE PREVENTATIVE FACULTY. J, -—PERCEPTION. THE DISTINCTION OF PERCEPTION PROPER FROM SENSA- TION PROPER. In my last Lecture, hfiving concTn(^lefI the revieTr of Reicl's Historical Account of Opinions on Perception, Recapitulation. -, i^ t^ , i i t and of Brown s attack upon that account, 1 proceeded to the question, — Is Keid's own doctrine of perception a. scheme of Natural Realism, that is, diel he accept in its integrity the datum of consciousness, — that we are immediately cognitive hoth of the phrenomena of matter and of the phaenomena of mind j or did he, like Brown, and the greater number of more recent philosophers, as Brown assumes, hold only the finer form of the representative hypothesis, Avhich supposes that, in perception, the external reality is not the immediate ohject of consciousness, but that the ego is only detennined in some unkno\t'n manner to rep- resent the non-ego, which representation, though only a modiftca- tion of mind or self, we are compelled, by an il'lusion of our nature, to mistake for a modification of matter, or not-self? I statcnl to you how, on tlie determination of this question, depended netirly the whole of Rerd's philosophical repntation ; hrs. philosophy pro^ fesses to subvert the foun(hitions of idealism and skepticism, and it is as having accomplished what he thus attemptehil<>sophy would thus be art once only a silly blunder; its pretenee to- origin- ality only a proclamation of ignor.ance ^ and so far from being an 328 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIY. honor to the nation from Avliich it arose, and by whom it was respected, it would, in fact, be a scandal and a reproach to the philosophy of any country in which it met with any milder treat- ment than derision. Previously, however, to the determination of this question, it was necessary to place before yoix, more distinctly than had hith- erto been done, the distinction of Mediate or Representative from Immediate or Intuitive knowledge, — a distinction which, though overlooked, or even abolished, in the modern systems of philoso- phy, is, both in itself and in its consequences, of the highest importance in psychology. Throwing out of view, as a now ex- ploded hypothesis, the cruder doctrine of representation, — that^ namely, Avhich supposes the immediate, or representative oVtject to be something different from a mere modification of mind, — from the mere energy of cognitions, — I articulately displayed to- you these two kinds of knowledge in their contrasts and correla- tions. They are thus defined. Intuitive or immediate knowledge is that in Avhich there is only one object, and in which that object is known . in itself, or as existing. Representative or mediate knowledge, on the contrary, is that in which there are two objects^ ' — an immediate and a mediate object; — the immediate object or that known in itself, being a mere subjective or mental mode relative to and representing a reality beyond the sphere of con- sciousness ; — the mediate object is that reality, thus supposed and represented. As an act of representative knowledge involves an intuitive cognition, I took a special example of such an act. I supposed that we called up to our minds the image of the Ilic/h Church. Now, here the immediate object, — the object of con- sciousness, is the mental image of that edifice. This we know, and know not as an absolute object, but as a mental object relative to. a material object which it represents ; which material object, in itself, is, at present, beyond the reach of our faculties of immediatcr knowledge, and is, therefore, only mediately known in its repre- sentation. You must observe that the mental image, — the imme- diate object, is not really different from the cognitive act of im- agination itself. In an act of mediate or representative knowledge,, the cognition and the immediate object are really an identical, modification, — the cognition and the object, — the imagination and the image, being nothing more than the mental representation, — the mental reference itself. The indivisible modification is dis- tinguished by two names, because it involves a relation between two terms (the two terms being the mind knowing and the thing represented), and may, consequently, be viewed in more proximate h Lect. XXIV. METAPHYSICS. 329 reference to the one or to the other of these. Looking to the mind knowing, it is called a cognition, an act of knowledge, aa imagination, etc. ; — looking to the thing represented, it is called a representation, an object, an image, an idea, etc. All i)hilosophers admit that the knowledge of our present mental states is immediate : if we discount some verbal ambiguities, all would admit that our actual knowledge of all that is not now exist- ent, or not now existent within the si)here of consciousness, must be mediate or representative. The only point on which any serious difference of opinion can obtain is, — Whether the ego or mind can be more than mediately cognizant of the pluenomena of the non-ego or matter. I then detailed to you the grounds on which it ought to be held that Reid's doctrine of Perception is one of Summary of the rea- Natural Realism, and not a form of Cosmo- sons for holding Keid a Natural Ucaiist. thetic Idealism, as supposed by Brown. An. immediate or intuitive knowledge is the knowl- edge of a thing as existing, — consequently, in this case, knowledge and existence infer each other. On the one hand, we know the object because it exists, — and, on the otlier, the object exists, since it is known. This is expressly maintained by Reid, and universally admitted by ])hilosophers. In the first place, on this principle, the philosophers hold that ideas (whether on the one hypothesis of representation, or on the other) necessarily exist, because immedi- ately known. Xow, if Reid, fully aware of this, assert that, on his doctrine, the external reality holds, in the act of perception, the same immediate relation to the mind, in which the idea or represen- tative inuxge stands in the doctrine of philosophers ; nnd that, con- sequently, on the one opinion, we have the same assurance of the existence of the material world, as, on the other, of the reality of the ideal world; — if, I say, he does this, he unambiguously pro- claims himself a natural realist. And that this he actuallv does, I showed you by various quotations from his writings. In the second place, upon the same jjancijile, mankind :it large believe in the existence of tlie external universe, because they believe that the external \iniverse is bv them immeiliatelv iierceiveerception. I do not, however, lay much stress on this argument, because we may possibly suspect that he makes the same mistake in regard to the term imniediate, as applied to this belief, which he does in its application to our repre- sentative cognitions. But, independently of this, the three former arguments are amply stifticient to establish our conclusion. These are the grounds on which I would maintain that Brown has not only mistaken, but absolutely reversed the fundamental principle of Reid's philosophy ; although it must be confessed, that the error and pei-plexity of Reid's exposition, arising from his non- distinction of the two possible forms of representation, and his confusion of representative and of intuitive knowledge, afford a not incompetent apology for those who might misapprehend his meaning. In this discussion, it may be matter of surprise, that I have not called in the e^ndence of Mr. Stewart. The truth is, — his writings afford no applicable testimony to the point at issue. His own statements of the doctrine of perception are brief and general, and he is content to refer the reader to Reid for the details. Of the doctrine of an intuitive perception of external objects, — which, as a foct of consciousness, ought to be Reid the first Cham- unconditionally admitted, — Reid has the merit, pion of Natural Kcai- j^ ^j^^^^ j.^^^^^. '^^^ ^^ ^. ^^^ ^^^^ champion, ism in these latter ^ i i • times. I have already noticed that, among the scholastic jihilosophers, there were some who maintained the same doctrine, and with far greater clearness and comprehension than Reid.^ These opinions are, however, even at this moment, I may say, wholly unknown ; and it would be ridiculous to suppose that their speculations had exerted any influence, direct or indirect, 1 See above, pp 292, 300, 316, notes. — Kd Lect. XXIV. METAPHYSICS, 331 Two modern philos- ophers, jireviously to Reid, held Intuitive Perception. upon a thinker so imperfectly acquainted with what had been done by previous philosophers, as Reid. Since the revival of letters, I have met with only two, anterior to Reid, whose doctrine on the present question coincided with his. One of these may, indeed, be discounted; for he has stated his opinions in so paradoxical a manner, that his authority is hardly worthy of notice.i The other,' who flourished about a century before Reid, has, on the contrary, stated the doctiine of an intuitive, and refuted the counter hypothesis of a representative perception, with a brevity, perspicuity, and precision, far superior to the Scottish philosoi)her. Both of these authors, I may say, are at present wholly unknown. Having concluded the argument by which I endeavored to satisfy you that Reid's doctrine is Natural Realism, I should now proceed to show that Natural Realism is a more philosophical doctrine than Hyj)Othetical Realism. Before, however, taking up the sul)joct, I think it better to dispose of certain subordinate matters, with which it is j>roper to have some preparatory acquaintance. Of these the first is the distinction of Perception Proper from Sensation Proper. 1 The philosopher here meant is probably John Sergeant, who inculcated a doctrine of Realism a;rainst modem philosophers jjener- ally, aiid Locke in particular, — in his Met/wd to Sritncf: (iriiMj), and Solid Philosophy asserted against the Fancies nf the Heists (1697). See, of the latter work. Preface, especially §§ 7, 18. i;t; pp 23, 42, 44, 58 et seq., 142, 338 et seq. See Le!ow, p. 353. — Ed. 1! The latter of the two philosophers here referred to, is doubtless Peter Poiret. He is meiifioned in the Author's Common-Place Book, as holdin}; amr)re correct opinion than Ueid on the point rai.sed in the te.\t. Poiret Was bcirii in V'Ai't, and died in 1719. He states his doctrine as follows: '-In nobis duplicis generis (saltern quantum ad coguitionem, 70Cf liac late sumpta) facultates iiiesse; reales «ltera-^, qua? res ipsas; alteras timbratiles, qii;i- rcriim jiicturas, uinl)rasve sive i'leas ex- liibcaiit ; et utrasque quideni facultates iUsis iterum duplices e.xistere; nempe, vel reales gpiritales. pro rebus spiritnllbus; vel realeg corpcrcas, pro rebus niaterialibus. Spiritnlts Tenlrs .-iunt i>assivus intellcetus ^(■nsus<|ti(' .•^pir- Uales et incimi. qui ab of>jectij» ijinis renlibns ac spiritalibus, eorumvo etiluviis veris-atficiun- tur. . . . CorpoTfiT rc/i/i',?. fiieiiltatcs sunt (line in neifotio) vi»ni»sensus<|ne ceferi cnrpnrei qui ab objectis i]>sis corporeis alfecti, eorum e.\- llibeiit nobis cou^nitiomm tensualr. UmhratHes autem facultates (qu;c snnt ipsa hominis. Ratio sive intellectus activus) comparent maxime, quaudo objectis sive rebus ideane siiit de rebus spirlt- alibns sive de corjjoreis, dicitur a me Ratio hutiiann vel intellectus artirus et jiirtwarius . . . infelFectus idealis. Defensio Melhodi In- venitiuli Verum, H 2, 4, p. 113. Cf. H I, 5, Opera Po.tMuma, (edit. 1721). CC Ilis De Vera ItT'thodn Inreniemli VTum, pars i, ^^ 20, 21, pp. 23, 24. (1st edit. li)!12), — prefixed to his D* Eruditiont. -See p. 2lJ3, note 2. — ED. 332 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XXIV. I have had occasion to mention, tliat the word Perception is, in the hxnguage of pliilosophers previous to Reid, The distinction of Per- used in a Very extensive signification. By Des- ception Proper from cartes, Malebranche, Locke, Leibnitz, and others^ Sensalion Proper. ... it- i -i . Use of the term Per- ^* ^^ employed m a sense almost as unexclusive ception previously to as consciousness in its widest signification. By Ke'd. Reid, this word was limited to our faculty acquisitive of knowledge, and to that branch of this faculty whereby, through the senses, we obtain a knowledge of the external world. But his limitation did not stop here. In the act of external perception, he distinguished two elements, to which he gave the names of Perception and Sensation. He ouolit, per- haps, to have called these perception j^rop^er and sensation proper ^ when employed in his special meaning ; for, in the language of other philosophers, sensation was a term which included his Per- ception, and p>erceptlon a term comprehensive of what he called Sensation. There is a great want of precision in Reid's account of Perception and Sensation. Of Perception he says : " If, ei » accoun o therefore, we attend to that act of our niindi Perception. , _ ^ which we call the perception of an external object of sense, we shall find in it these three things. Firsts Some conception or notion of the object perceived. Secondly, A strong and irresistible conviction and belief of its present existence J and. Thirdly, That this conviction and belief are immediate, and not the eflfect of reasoning. '■'■First, it is impossible to perceive an object without having some notion or conception of what we percei\e. We may indeed con- ceive an object which we do not perceive ; but when we perceive the object, we must have some conception of it at the same time ; and we have commonly a more clear and steady notion of the object while we perceive it, than we have from memory or imagination^ Avhen it is not perceived. Yet, even in perception, the notion which our senses give of the object may be more or less clear, more or less distinct in all possible degrees." ^ Now here you will observe that the " having a notion or concep- tion," bv which he explains the act of -perception. Wanting in pre- -i",* i-i jjjgj^jj might at first lead us to conclude that he held, as Brown supposes, the doctrine of a represenr- tative perception ; for notion and conception are generally used by philosoi^hers for a representation or mediate knowledge of a thing. 1 Intellectual Powers, Essay ii. c. v. Works, p. 258. ; I > Lkct. XXIV. METAPHYSICS. 333 But, tliougli lle'ul cannot escape censure Cor ambiguity and a agne- ness, it appears, from the analogy of his writings, that by notion or concejyfionh.e meant nothing more than knowledge or cognition. Sensation he thus describes: "Almost all our perceptions have corresponding sensations, which constantly ac- Sensation. company them, and, on that account, are very apt to be confounded with them. Neither ought we to expect that the sensation, and its corresponding perception, should be distin- guished in common language, because the purposes of common life do not require it. Language is made to serve the ])urposes of ordi- nary conversation; and we have no reason to expect that it should make distinctions that are not of common use. Hence it hai)pens that a quality perceived, and the sensation corresponding to that perception, often go under the same name. " This makes the names of most of our sensations ambiguous, and this ambiguity hath very much perplexed the philosophers. It will be necessary to give some instances, to illustrate the distinction between our sensations and the objects of j^erception. " When I smell a rose, there is in this operation both sensation and perception. The agreeable odor I feel, considered by itself, Avithout relation to any external object, is merely a sensation. It affects the mind in a certain way; and this affection of the mind may be conceived, without a thought of the rose or any other object. This sensation can be nothing else than it is felt to be. Its very essence consists in being felt ; and when it is not felt, it is not. There is no difference between the sensation and the feeling of it; they are one and the same thing. It is for this reason, that we l»etore observed, that in sensation, there is no olyect distinct from that act of mind by which it is felt ; and this holds true with regard to all sensations. "Let us next attend to the ])erception which we have in smelling arose. Perception has always an external olyect ; and the object of my i)ercej)tion, in this case, is that quality in tlie rose which I discern by the sense of smell. Observing that the agreeable sensa- tion is raised when the rose is near, and ceases when it is removed. I aju led, by my nature, to conclude some quality to be in the rose wliich is the cause of this sensation. This (piality in the rose is the object jterceived ; and that act of the mind, by which I have the conviction and belief of this quality, is what in this case I call j>er- ce))tion."^ Hy 2)ercej)tion, Reid, therefore, means the objective knowledge we J Int'lUctual Powers, Kssay ii. ch. 16. CvU. Woria, p. 310. 334 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXiy have of an external reality, through the senses ; by sensation^ the subjective feeling of pleasure or pain, with Reid anticipated ill which the organic operation of sense- is accom- his distinction of Per- • -i n^i • t a- i- j? xi ^ • ^- £• panied. Inis distinction oi the obiective from ceptiou from Sensa- ' _ _ _ "^ tion. the subjective element in the act is important. Reid is not, however, the author of this distinc- tion. He himself notices of Malebranche that "he distinguished more accurately than any philosopher had done before, the objects which we perceive from the sensations in our own minds, which, l)y the laws of nature, always accompany the perception of the object. As in many things, so particularly in this, he has great merit ; for this, I apprehend, is a key that oj^ens the way to a right understanding both of our external senses, and of other powers of the mind."' I may notice that Malebranche's distinction is Malebranche. . -rt • -ti -n into Idee, corresponding to lieid s Jrerception^ and Sentiment., corresponding to his Sensation ; and this distinction is as ])recisely marked in Malebranche^ as in Reid. Subsequently to Malebranche, the distinction became even common ; and there is no reason for Mr. Stewart'^ being struck when Crousaz, Hutcheson, ^^ ^^^^^^ .| -j. -j^ ^^^.^^^^^.^ .^„(-[ Hutcheson. It is tO Le Clerc, Sinsart, Buf- ■, ,. -^ • -r ± ■ -i- - • -r» «• ggj. be found in i^e CI ere,* in Sinsart,'' in i>uiher,'' m Genovesi,^ and in many other philosophers. It is curious that Malebranche's distinction was apprehended neither by Locke nor by Leibnitz, in their counter examinations of the theory of that philosopher. Both totally mistake its import. Male- branche, however, was not the original author of the distinction. He himself professedly evolves it out of Des- cartes.^ But long previously to • Descartes, it had been clearly established. It formed a part of that admirable doctrine of perception maintained by the party of the Schoolmen to whom I have already alluded.'^ I find it, however, long prior to them. It is, in particular, stated with great Plotinus. . . 1 -r-.! • 1ft T • /- precision by 1 lotinus,'" and even some inferences drawn from it, Avhich are supposed to be the discoveries of modern philosophy. 1 Intellectual Powers, Essay ii. eh. vii. Coll. 5 [Recueil des Pensees sur I' Immortalite dt Works, p. 265. V Ame, 119.]. 2 Recherche de la Veritc, lib. iii. part ii. eh. C First Truths, part i. ch. xiv. «6 109—111. vi. and vii., with Eclaircissement on text. Cf. Kemarks on Crousaz, art. viil. p. 427 See lieuPs Works, pp.«34, 887. — Ed. (Eng. Trans). —Eu. 3 Philosophical Es.irnjs, notes F and G. The " [Eltmenta Metaphysica, pars ii. p. 12.] passages from Hutcheson and Crousaz are & See Reid'' s Works, p. SSi.. — Ed. given in Sir W. Hamilton's edition of the See above, 1. x.xiii. p. 316, and Reid's CoUected Works, vol. v. p. 420. — Ed. Works, p. 887. — Ed. i Pneumatologia, § i. cliap. v. Opera Phi- in E»in. iii. vi 2. &ee Reid' s Works, yi. f- psvchologists, — it is proper to Say a few words, tdon and Sensation, f, * . ^ , /■ . i ' i iUustrated illustrative 01 the nature oi tlie jihtenomena themselves ; for wliat you will find in Reid, is by no means either complete or definite. The opposition of Perception and Sensation is true, but it is not a. statement adequate to the generality of the The contrast of Per- contrast. Percei)tion is only a special kind of caption and Sensation, , , ^ , . . • i i • i the special manifes- knowledge, and scnsation only a special kind tation of a contrast of feeling; and Knoidedge and Feeling, y(ju which universally di- y^.'^n rccoUect, are two out of the three great vides Knowledge and ^^^ .^^^ ^^.j^.^.^^ ^^.^ primarily divided the Feeling. . ' i ^ ^ phaenomena of mind. Conation was the thuxL Xow, as perception is only a special mode of knowledge, and sensa- tion only a special mode of feeling, so the contrast of perception and sensation is only the special manifestation of a contrast, which universally divides the generic phajnomena themselves. It ought, therefore, in the first place, to liave been noticed, that the generic phaenomena of knowledge and feeling are always found coexistent, and yet always distinct; and the opposition of perception and sensa- tion should have been stated as an obtrusive, but still only a par- ticular example of the general law. But not Perception Proper only is the distinction of perception and sensa- and Sensation Pro- ^j^j^ j^,,^ rreneralizcd, — not referred to its cate- per, precisely distin- , ^ ... .^ . , . , g„i,hed. g^iy. by our i.sychologists; it is not concisely and precisely stated. A cognition is objective, that is, our consciousness is tlien relative to something difierent from the present state of the mind itself; a feeling, on the contr.iry, is subjective, that is, our consciousness is exclusively limited to the ])leasure or i)ain exi»erienced by tlie thinking subject. Cognition and feehng are always coexistent. The purest act of knowledge is always colored by some feeling of pleasure or pain ; for no energy is absolutely indifferent, and the grossest feeling exists only as it is known in consciousness. This being the case of cognition and fci>l- ing in general, the same is true of perception and sensation in par- ticular. Perception proper is the consciousness, through the senses, of the qualities of an object known as diffci-ent from self; Sensation proper is the consciousness of the subjective affection of ])k'asure or pain, which accomjtanies that act of knowledge. Perception is thus the objective element in the complex state, — the element of cog- nition; sensation is the subjective element, — the element of feeling. 336 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. xxiy Tlie most remarkable defect, however, in the present doctrine upon this point, is the ignorance of our psycholo- The grand law by -^^ -^ ^.^ .^| ^^ ^-^^ ^^^^ . ^^.^^^^ ^j^^ , ^_ which the phenomena ^ '- . . i <> of Knowledge and nomcna of cognition and feeling, — of perception Feelicg, — Perception and scnsatiou, are governed, in tlieir reciprocal «nd Sensation, are relation. Tliis law is simple and universal ; and, governed in their re- . /% . ^ -, . ciprocai relation. 0"^"^ enounccd, its proof IS found in every men- tal manifestation. It is tliis : Knowledire and Feeling, — Percej^tion and Sensation, though always coexistent, are always in the inverse ratio of each other.^ That these two elements are always found in coexistence, as it is an old and a notorious truth, it is not requisite for me to prove. But that these elements are always found to coexist in an inverse proportion, — in supi>ort of this universal fact, it will be requisite to adduce proof and illus- tration. In doing this I shall, however, confine myself to the relation of Perception and Sensation. These afford the b,d)ibie an i- bcst examples of the generic relation of knowl- lustrated. ^ . ° edge and feeling ; and we must not now turn ^side from the special foculty with which we are engaged. The first 2>roof I shall take from a comparison of the several senses ; and it will be found that, j^recisely as 1. From a compari- ^ g^^g^ ^^^^ ^^^^^.^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ element, it has less fou of tlie several . mi -in jgjjgpg of the otlier. Laying Touch aside for the mo- ment, as this requires a special exjilanation, the other four Senses divide themselves into two classes, according as perception, the objective element, or sensation, the subjective ele- ment, predominates. The two in which the former element prevails, are Sight and Hearing; the two in which the latter, are Taste and Smell.^ Now, here, it will be at once admitted, that Sight, at the same instant, presents to us a fjreater number and a Si"ht. greater variety of objects and qualities, than any other of the senses. In this sense, therefore, perception, — the objective element, is at its maximum. But sensation, — the sub- jtective element, is here at its minimum ; for, in the eye, we experi- ence less organic pleasure or pain from the impressions of its a2)pro- priate objects (colors), than we do in any other sense. Next to Sight, Hearing affords us, in the shortest interval, the 1 This law is enunciated by Kant, Anthro- sie viel lehren sollen, miissen sie m'issig affici- ' j>o!ogie. ^ 20. Kant's words are, " Je starker ren." yl?irincij)lc more explicitly than Shakspeare: Shakspeare. '• Tiiese violent deli^^hts have violent ends, And in ihcir triumph die. The sweetest honey Is loatlisome in its own delieiousness, And in the taste contDiniils the appetite. Tlierel'ore, love moderately; lonj? love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too sIow."< The result of what I have now staled, therefore, is, in the first place, that, as philosojiliers have observed, there is a distinction 1 .Tonnni's Secundus, Ba,»m, ix. Opera, p. 85, est, qua;nam cau.«a sit, cur ea, qua> niaxlme (edit. 1031). — Ed. sciisiis, nostros iini)ol]unt voluplatc, et sjiccie prima acerrime coniniovent, ab iis celerrime fa.>ject which exists. Nor could there possibly be such reference or representation ; for reference or rej^resentation supposes a knowledge already possessed of the object referred to or represented ; but perception is the faculty by which our first knowledge is acquired, and, therefore, cannot suppose a previous knowledge as its condition. But this I notice only by the way; this matter will be regularly considered in the sequel. I may here notice the false analysis, which has endeavored to take percej^tion out of the list of our faculties, as Perception taken out being oidv a conijiound and derivative ]iower. of the list of primary j>,.,.,;.ption, savlJrown and others, supposes faculties, through a \ " • i • i i false analysis. memory and comparison and judgment; there- fore, it is not a primary faculty of mind. Noth- ing can be more erroneous than this reasoning. In the first place, I have formerly shown you that consciousness sujiposes memory, and discrimination, and judgment; and, as perception does not pretend to be simpler than consciousness, but in fiict only a modification of consciousness, that, therefore, tlie objection does not ajiply. But, in the second place, the objection is founded on a misapprehension of Avhat a faculty i)roi)eily is. It may 1)e very true that an act of jier- ception cannot be realized simply and alone. T have often told you that the mental phajnomena are never simple, ami that as tissues 342 METAniYSICS. Lect. XXIV are woven out of many threads, so a mental phenomenon is made up of many acts and affections, which we can only consider separately by abstraction, but can never even conceive as separately existing. In mathematics, we consider a triangle or a square, the sides and the angles apart from each other, though we are unable to conceive them existing independently of each otlier. But because the angles and sides exist only through each other, would it be correct to deny their reality as distinct mathematical elements ? As in geometry, so is it in })sychology, "We admit that no faculty can exist itself alone ; and that it is only by viewing the actual manifestations of mind in their different relations, that we are able by abstraction to analyze them into elements, which we refer to difi'erent fliculties. Thus, for example, every judgment, every comparison, supposes two terms to be compared, and, therefore, supposes an act of representa- tive, or an act of acquisitive cognition. But go back to one or other of these acts, and you will find tliat each of them supposes a judg- ment and a memory. If I represent in imagination the terms of comparison, there is involved a judgment; for the f^ict of their representation supposes the afhrmation or judgment that they are called up, that they now ideally exist ; and this judgment is only possible, as the result of a comparison of the present consciousness of their existence Avith a past consciousness of their non-existence, which comparison, again, is only 2)ossible through an act of memory. Connected with the preceding distinction of Perception and Sensation, is the distinction of the Primary and The Primary and Secondary Qualities of matter. This distinc- Secondary Qualities . • t i t i n of matter. ^^^'^ Cannot be omitted ; but 1 sliall not attempt to follow out the various difficult and doubtful problems which it presents.^ It would only confuse you were I to attempt to determine, how far this distinction was known to the Atomic Historical notices of tii • t • j. • ^ a-^xi ii j? ,, . ,. . ,. Physiologists, prior to Aristotle, and how far this distinction. . . . . Aristotle himself was aware of the princijile on which it proceeds. — It is enough to notice, as the most remarkable opinion of antiquity, that of Deinocritus, who, Democritus. ^ ... ^ -, i . , except the common qualities of body which are known by Touch, denied that the senses afforded us any informa tion concerning the real j^roperties of matter. Among modern philosophers, Descartes was the first who re- called attention to the distinction. According to him, the primary qualities diffe^ from the secondary in this, — ■ 1 For a fuller and more accurate account of the history of this distinction, see HtiU t Works, note D. — Ed. J Lect. XXIV. METAPHYSICS. 348 that our knowledge of the former is more clear and distinct than of tlie latter. "Longe alio modo cognoscimus quid sit in corpore magnitudo vel figura quaui quid sit, in eodem corpore, color, vel odor, vel sapor. — Longe evidentius cognoscimus quid sit in corpore esse figuratum quam quid sit esse coloratum."^ "The qualities of external objects," says Locke,- "are of two sorts; first, Original or Primary; such are so- lidity, extension, motion or rest, number and figure. These are inseparable from body, and such as it (-(nistantly kee])s in all its changes and alterations. Thus, take a grain of wheat, diviile it into two parts ; each j)art has still solidity, exten- sion, figure, mobility ; divide it again, and it still retains the same qualities ; and will do so still, though you divide it on till the parts become insensible. " Secondly, Secondary qualities, such as colors, smells, tastes, sounds, etc., wliich, whatever reality we by mistake may attribute to them, Miv, in truth, nothing in the objects themselves, but powers to ])roduce various sensations in us ; and depend on the qualities before mentioned. "The ideas of jjrimary (pialities of bodies arc resemblances of them; and their patterns really exist in bodies themselves: but the ideas produced in us by secondary qualities, haA'e no resem- blance of them at all : and what is sweet, blue, or Avarm in the idea, is but the certain bidk, figure, and motion of the insensible parts in the bodies themselves, which we call so." Reid adopted the distinction of Descartes : he holds tliat our knowkMlw of the primary qualities is clear and distinct, whereas our knowledge of the second- ary qualities is obscure.' " P]very man," he says, " capable of refiection, may easily satisfy himself, that he has a perfectly clear and distinct notion of extension, divisibility, figure, and motion. The solidity of a body means no more, but that it excludes other bodies from occupying the same place at the same time. Hard- ness, softness, and fluidity, are diflferent degrees of cohesion in the parts of a body. It is fiuid, when it has no sensible cohesion ; soft when the cohesion is weak; and hard when it is strong: of the cause of this cohesion Ave are ignorant, but the thing itself Ave understand perfectly, being immediately informed of it by the sense of touch. It is evident, therefore, that of the ])rimary quali- ties Ave have a clear and distinct notion ; Ave knoAv Avhnt they are, 1 Principia, i. 5 fiO — Ed. 3 InUlUrtunl Powers, Essay ii. ch. xvil 2 Rjni/ii. 8, 0. Till- ti-xtisan iibruiv'meiit H ori.s, p. 3U. — Eu. of Locke, not an exact quotation. — Eu. 344 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIV. thougli Ave may be ignorant of the causes." But he did more, h» endeavored to show that this difference arises from the circum- stance, — that the perception, in the case of the primary qualities, is direct; in the case of the secondary, only relative. This he explains: "I observe, further, that the notion we have of primary qualities is direct and not relative only. A relative notion of a thing is, strictly speaking, no notion of the thing at all, but only of some relation which it bears to soraethina: else. "Thus gravity sometimes signifies the tendency of bodies towards the earth ; sometimes it signifies the cause of that tendency ; when it means the first, I have a direct and distinct notion of gravity;. I see it, and feel it, and know perfectly what it is; but this tend- ency must have a cause ; we give the same name to the cause ; and that cause has been an object of thought and of speculation. Now, what notion have Ave of this cause AA^hen we think and reason about it? It is evident Ave think of it as an unknoAA^n cause of a knoAvn effect. This is a relative notion, and it must be obscure^ because it gives us no conception of what the thing is, but of what relation it bears to something else. Every relation which a thing unknoAA'n bears to something that is known, may give a rela- tive notion of it; and there are many objects of thought, and of discourse, of Avhich our faculties can give no better than a relative notion. "Having premised these things to explain what is meant by a relative notion, it is evident, that our notion of Primary Qualities is not of this kind ; Ave knoAV what they are, and not barely what relation they bear to something else. " It is otherAvise Avith Secondary Qualities. If you ask me, what is that quality or modification in a rose which I call its smell, I am at a loss Avhat to answer directly. Upon reflection I find, that 1 haA'e a distinct notion of the sensation which it produces in my mind. But there can be nothing like to this sensation in the rose> because it is insentient. The quality in the rose is something Avhich occasions the sensation in me ; but what that something is, I know not. My senses give me no information upon this j)oint. The only notion, therefore, my senses give is this, that smell in the rose is an unknown quality or modification Avhich is the cause or occasion of a sensation which I knoAV Avell. The relation Avhich. this unknoAvn quality bears to the sensation with which nature hath connected it, is all I learn from the sense of smelling ; but this ia evidently a relative notion. The same reasoning Avill apply to every secondary quality. "Thus I think it appears, that there is a real foundation for Ji Lect. XXIV. METAPHYSICS. 845 the distinction of primary from secondary qualities ; and that they are distinguished by this, that of the primary we have by our senses a direct and distinct notion ; but of the secondary only a relative notion, whicli must, because it is only relative, be obscure ; they are conceived only as tlie unknown causes or occasions of certain sensations, with which Ave are well acquainted." You will observe that the lists of the primary qualities given by Locke and Reid do not coincide. Accordinsr The list of primary to Locke, these are Solidity, Extension, Motion,. qualities given by Hardness, Softucss, Roughucss, Smoothness, and Locke, and that of „. . - . Reid, do not coincide. ^ luidlty. Stewart. Mr. Stewart proposes another line of demar- cation. "I distinguish," he says, '••Extension and Figure by the title of the Jfat/ie//wtical Ajftctions of matter; restricting the phrase. Primary Qualities, to Hardness and Soft- ness, Roughness and Smoothness, and other properties of the^ same descrii)tion. The line which T would draw between Primary and Secondary Qualities is this, that the former necessarily involve the notion of Extension, and consequently of externality or out- ness; whereas the latter are only conceived as the unknown causes, of known sensations; and v^hen first apprehended by the mind, do- not im])ly the existence of anything locally distinct from the sub- jects of its own consciousness."^ All these Primary Qualities, including Mr. Stewart's Mathe- matical Affections of matter, may easily be re- Thc Priniary Qnaii- duccd to two, — Extension and Solidity. Thus: ties reducible to two, t:<. • ^• -^ ^- £• ^ • tt i , „ r'lrruro, IS a mere limitation oi extension; Hard- — Extension and So- o ' ^ ^ ' jidity. iiess, Softness, Fluidity, are only Solidity vari- ously modified, — only its different degrees; while Roughness and Smoothness denote only the sensations con- nected with certain perceptions of Solidity. On the other hand^ in regaj'd to Divisibility (which is ]ir(»per to Reid), and to Motion, — these can h.irdly be mere data of sense. * Divisibility supposes- division, and a body divided supposes memory; for if wc did not remember that it had been one, we should not know that it is now two ; we couM not compare its present with its former state ; an<1 it is by this coinjiarison alone that we learn the fact of division. As to Motion, this su]>poses the exercise of memory, and the notioi> of time, and, therefore, we do not owe it exclusively to sense. Finally, as to Xumber, which is peculiar to Locke, it is evident that this, far from being a (piality of matter, is only an abstract 1 Phil. E-sai/s, H'ori-s vol. v. \i\>. lU!. 117. 346 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIV. notion, — the fabrication of the intellect, and not a datum of sense.^ Tlius, then, Ave have reduced all j^rimary qualities to Extension and Solidity, and we are, moreover, it would 'I Ins reduction in- geem, beiyinninf? to see licjht, inasmuch as the volves a difficulty. . ' * ,. .* , • ,• , primary qualities are those in winch percej^tion is dumiuant, the secondary those in which sensation prevails. But here we are again thrown back : for extension is only another name for space, and our notion of space is not one which we derive exclu- sively from sense, — not one which is generalized only from experi- ence ; for it is one of our necessary notions, — in fact, a fundamental condition of thought itself The analysis of Kant, independently of all that has been done by other philosophers, has placed this truth beyond the possibility of doubt, to all those who understand the meaning and conditions of the problem. For us, however, this is not the time to discuss tlie subject. But, What, and how taking it for granted tliat the notion of space *°'^'^'^- is native or a prioi'i., and not adventitious or Space known n pri- . . , , , , . ,, ^ . a posteriori, are we not at once thrown back art : Lxtensiou a pos- <-«' y^ ■> tenori. luto idealisiu ? For if extension itself be only a necessary mental mode, how can we make it a quality of external objects, known to us by sense ; or how can we contrast the outer world, as the extended, with the inner, as the unextended world? To this difficulty, I see only one possible answer. It is this : — It cannot be denied that space, as a necessary notion, is native to the mind ; but does it follow, that, because there is an a priori space, as a form of thought, we may not also have an empirical knowledge of extension, as an element of existence? The former, indeed, may be only the condition through which the latter is possible. It is true that, if we did not possess the general and necessary notion of space anterior to, or as the condition of" experience, from experience we should never obtain more than a generalized and contingent notion of space. But there seems to me no reason to deny, that because we have the one, we may not also have the other. If tliis be admitted, the whole difficulty is solved ; and we may designate by the name of extension our empiri- cal knowledge of space, and reserve the terra space for space con- sidered as a form or fundamental law of thought.^ This matter 1 III this reduction of the primary qualities 2 Here, on blank leaf of MS., are jotted to Extension and Solidity, tlie author follows the words, "So Causality." [Causality de- Royer-Collani, whose remarks will be found pends, first, on the a priori necessity in the quoted in lieiiVs Works, p. 844. From the mind to think some cause; and, secoud, on notes appended to that quotation, it will be experience, as revealing to us the particn'ar seen that Sir W. Hamilton's final opinion cause of any effect.]— Orai Interpolation, liit differs in some respects from that expressed not at this passage. — Ed. In the present text. — Ed. Lect. xxiy. METAi'iiYsics. 347 will, however, come appropriately to be considered, in treating of the Kegulative Faculty. The following is the result of what I think an accurate analysis would afford, though there are no doubt many General result. — In difficulties to be explained. — That our knowl- the Primary c^iaiities, ^jg^. ^f .^^ ^l^g qualities of matter is merely frsfiriheTecrd- relative. But though the qualities of matter arv, Sensation. are all knowu only in relation to our faculties, and the total or absolute cognition in perception is only matter in a certain relation to mind, and mind in a certain relation to matter; still, in different perceptions, one term of the relation may predominate, or the otlier. Where the objective ele- ment predominates, — where matter is known as principal in its relation to mind, and mind only known as subordinate in its corre- lation to matter, — we have Perception Proper, rising superior to sensation; this is seen iu the Primary Qualities. "Where, on the contrary, the subjective element predominates, — where mind is known as principal in its relation to matter, and matter is only known as subordinate in its relation to mind, — we have Sensation Pi-oper rising superior to perception; and this is seen in the Sec- ondary Qualities. The ade(iuate illustration of this would, however, require both a longer, and a more abstruse, discussion than we can afford.' 1 Cf. ReidU Works, Notes D and D». — Ed. LECTURE XXV. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. I. PERCEPTION. OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF NATURAL REALISM. From our previous discussions, you are now, in some measure^ preparer] for a consideration of the grounds on Objections to the -which philosophers have so generallv asserted doctrine of Natural . .„ . „ . * , Keaiism. ^"^ scientiuc necessity ot repressing the testi- mony of consciousness to the fact of our imme- diate perception of external objects, and of allowing us only a mediate knowledge of the material world : a procedure by which they either admit, or cannot rationally deny, that Consciousness i» a mendacious Avitness; that Philosophy and the Common Sense of mankind are placed in contradiction ; nay, that the only legitimate ])hilosophy is an absolute and universal skepticism. That conscious- ness, in perception, atibrds us, as I have stated,. The testimony of an assurance of an intuitive cognition of the Consciousness in per- non-ego, is not Only notorious to every one Avho ception, notorious, and .... . , ^-i' i? ^ i j. acknowledged by phi- ^^i" interrogate consciousness as to the tact, but losophers of all classes. is, as I have already shown you, acknowledged Hume quoted. not Only by cosmotlietic idealists, but even by absolute idealists and skeptics. " It seems evi- dent," says Hume, who in this concession must be allowed to exi>ress the common acknowledgment of philosophers, " that when men follow this blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always sup- pose the very images, presented by the senses, to be the external objects, and never entertain any suspicion, that the one are nothing but representations of the other. This very table, which we see white, and which we feel hard, is believed to exist, independent of our perception, and to be sometliing external to our mind, which perceives it. Our presence bestows not being on it : our absence does not annihilate it. It preserves its existence, uniform and entire, independent of the situation of intelligent beings, who per- ceive or contemplate it. But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an inxage or LiXT. XXV. METAPHYSICS. 349 perception, and that the senses are only the inlets, through which these images are received, without being ever able to j^roduce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object."^ In considering this subject, it is manifest that, before rejecting the testimony of consciousness to our immediate The discussion di- knowledge of the non-ego, the philosophers Tided into two parts. ^^.pj-e bound, in the first place, to evince the absolute necessity of their rejection ; and, in the second place, in substituting an hypothesis in the room of the rejected fact, they were bound to substitute a legitimate hypothesis, — that is, one which does not violate the laws under which an hypothesis can be rationally proposed. I shall, therefore, divide the discussion into two sections. In the former, I shall state the rea- sons, as far as I have been able to discover them, on which philoso- phers have attempted to manifest tlie impossibility of acquiescing in the testimony of consciousness, and the general belief of man- kind ; and, at the same time, endeavor to refute these reasons, by showing that they do not establish the necessity required. In the latter, I shall attempt to i:)rove that the hy]>othesis proposed by the philosophers, in place of the fact of consciousness, does not fulfil the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis, — in fact, violates them almost all. In the first j)lacc, then, in regard to the reasons assigned by phi- losophers for their refusal of the fact of our I. Reasons for n- immediate i)erception of external things, — of jecti,.,^ the testimony ^^^^^^ j j^.^^.^ ^^^^^ ^^^j^ ^^ ^^jj^^^ .^^ ^j^ ^^,^ ^^ t)i Consciousness ni perception, detailed ^^^^Y (-'^^inK^t be Very briefly stated, I shall not and eiitic-i/ed. first enumerate them together, ami llicu con- sider each in detail; but shall consider llicm one after the other, witiioul any general and prelimiuary statement. Tiie first, and highest, ground on which it may be held, that the object immeiliately known in j)orgeption is a The (irst ground of tl- .• r . \ ' • i • i ,- • i ,. m re'ection luoditicat loll oi the iiuinl ilselt, is the followmg: Perception is a cognition or act of knowlennciple is one whose influence is seen pervading the whole history of philosophy, and tlie tracing of this This principle has i„flj^,.,^, ^ would form the subject of a curious influenced the wliole history of phiiosopiiy. treatise.^ To It we principally owe the doctrine of a representative 2y&rception^ in one or other of its forms ; and in a higlier or lower potence, according as the re])re- sentative object was held to be, in relation to mind, of a nature eitlier the same or similar. Derivative from the prinoijile in its lower potence or degree (tliat is, the immediate object being sup- posed to be only something similar to the mind), we have, among other less celebrated and less definite theories, the intoitional spe- cies of the schoolmen (at least as generally held), and the ideas of Malebranche and Berkeley. Tn its higher potence (tliat is, where the representative object is supposcil to be of a nature not iiiorcly sim- ilar to, but identical with, iiiind, though it may be numerically differ- ent from individual minds), it ailbrds us, among other monnciple, through the refusal of the testimony of consciousness to the duality of our knowledge, are also medi- ately to be traced the unitarian systems of absolute identity, mate- rialism, and idealism. But, if no principle was ever more universal in its effects, none was ever more arbitrarily assumed. It not only \Tv2- ^^ ^""^^^^^'^ can pretend to no necessity ; it has absolutely no probability in its favor. Some philosophers, as Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, Alcmieon, have even held that the rela- tion of knowledge supposes, not a similarity or sameness between subject and object, but, in fact, a contrariety or opposition ; and Aristotle himself is sometimes in fiivor of this opinion, though, sometimes, it would apjiear, in fovor of the other.^ But, however this may be, each assertion is just as likely, and '" * ""P " °*<>P ^'' j^igt j^g unphilosophical, as its converse. "We know, and can know, nothing a priori of what is possible or impossible to mind, and it is only by observation and by generalization a posteriori, that we can ever hope to attain any insight into the question. But the very first fact of our experience contradicts the assertion, that mind, as of an z. Contradicted by opposite nature, can have no immediate cog- the first tact of our . , . experience. nizance of matter ; for the primary datum of consciousness is, that, in perception, we have an intuitive knowledge of the ego and of the non-ego, equally and at once. This second ground, therefore, affords ns no stronger neces- sity than the first, for denying the possibility of the fact of which consciousness assures us. The third ground on Avhich the representative hypothesis of per- ception is founded, and that apparently alone The third ground of contemplated bv Reid and Stewart, is, that the rejection. . « ' mind can only know immediately that to which it is immediately present ; but as external objects can neither them- selves come into the mind, nor the mind go out to them, such presence is impossible ; therefore, external objects can only be 1 See above, p. 205, note. — Ed. Lect. XXV. METAPHYSICS. 353 mediately known, through some representative object, whether that ■object be a modification of mind, or something in immediate rela- tion to the mind. It was this difficulty of bringing the subject and object into proximate relation, that, in part, determined all the vari- ous schemes of a representative perception ; but it seems to have been the one which solely determined the peculiar form of that ■doctrine in the philosojihy of Democritus, Epicurus, Digby, and others, under which it is held, that the immediate or internal object is a rei)resentative emanation, propagated from the external reality to the sensorium. Now this objection to the immediate cognition of external objects, has, as far as I know, been redargued in three Has been redargued fiiflf-.^rcnt wavs. In the first placc, it has been in three different i • i , ' i i i- ^jyg denied, that the external reality cannot itself come into the mind. In the second, it has been asserted, that a faculty of the mind itself does actually go out to the external reality ; and, in the third place, it has been maintained that, though the mind neither goes out, nor the reality comes in, and though subject and object are, therefore, not present to each other, still that the mind, through the agency of God, has an immc' r-^ trine of Occasional "^^'^^'^ ^^^ Cartesuiu doctrmc of Occasional Cau- Causes. ses. According to Reid and Stewart,- — and the opinion has been more explicitly asserted by the latter, — there is no really efficient cause in nature but one, viz., the Deity. What are called pliysical causes and effects being antece- dents and consequents, but not in virtue of any mutual and neces- sary dependence ; — the only efficient being God, Avho, on occasion of the antecedent, which is called the physical cause, produces the consequent, which is called the physical effect. So in the case of perception ; the cognition of the external object is not, or may not be, a consequence of the immediate and natural relation of that object to the mind, but of the agency of God, who, as it were, reveals the outer existence to our perception. A similar doctrine is held by a great German philosopher, Frederick Henry Jacobi.'' To tills opinion many objections occur. In the first place, so far is it from being, as Mr. Stewart affirms, a [tlain And exposed to statement of the facts, apart froni all hypothesis, many objections. •. • •,. ,1 , ^1 ^' 1 t .1* 1 •,, ., . , It IS manitestiv hypothetical. In the second 1. Hypothetical. " •' *_ 2. Mystical. i)lace, the hypothesis assumes an occult jiriii- 3. iiyperphysicai. ciple ; — it is mystical. In the third place, the hypothesis is hyper|)hysical, — calling in the proximate assistance of the Deity, wliilc the necessity of such inter- vention is not established. In the fourth jilace, 4. Cioes to frustrate •, i- ^ j.- ^ ^ ^^ 1 1 i ^ • ... ,,.... it goes even lar to irustrate the whole doctrine a doctrine of Intuitive '^ Perception. of the two ])hilosophers in regard to ]ierccption, as a doctrine of intuition. For if God has be- stowed on me the faculty of immediately j)erceiving the external 1 Stewnrrs Works, vol. ii. pp. Ill, 112. 3 DnvitI Hinjir. Mrr den Glauhen, Werke. ii 2 Keid, Intellectual Powers, Essay ii. c. vi.; p. 165; Uhe; ilie Lrhre r/es Spiiinza. Werke. iv Active Potcers, Kssay i. c. v. vi. : Helled to reject the fact of our immediate consciousness II. The nature of r> .1 • ,• i .. 1 1 • ., , , . ,. lain ; Second, -That tiie — ^]y^^ \^ ^]y^^\\ ^^t oxplodc the system of which livi.oiliesig shall not •, /• ^ t> .. ^i • ^i * i ii • • ,. ^ ., It forms a part. J^ut this, the hypothesis in subvert that winch it _ ' _ . . . ' . is devised to explain. qucstioii docs ; it annihilates itself in the de- struction of the whole edifice of knowledge. Belying the testimony of consciousness to our immediate percep- tion of an outer world, it belies the veracity of consciousness alto- gether; and the truth of consciousness is the condition of the possil)ility of all knowledge. Tlie thinl condition of a legitimate hyj>othesis, is, tliat the fact or facts, in explanation of which it is devised, Third, — That the Ix' ascertained really to exist, and be not thein- fact or facts in ex- ^^.,^.^,^ h vpotlietical.' But SO far is the principal planation of which it , , ■' , , i i • r' is devised, be not hy- »="' ^^l'"'' ^''^' I'.vpothcsis of a representative pothetjcal. perception is ])ro|)o.sed to explain, from being certain, that its reality is even renderecl prob- lematical by the proposed explanation itself. The facts wliich this ClOUS. 364 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXVI hypothesis supposes to be ascertained and established are two — first, the fact of an external world existing; sec- Two facts supposed ond, the fact of an internal world knowing, by the hypothesis in rpj^^^^^ ^^^ hypothesis take for granted. For h question, and their . , t tt i t o tt connection sought to ^^ askcd, How are these connected? — How can be explained by it. the internal World know the external world existing? And, in answer to this problem, the hypothesis of representation is advanced as explaining the mode of their correlation. This hypothesis denies the immediate connec- tion of the two facts ; it denies that the mind, the internal world, can be immediately cognizant of matter, the external; and between the two worlds it interpolates a representation which is at once the object known by mind, and as known, an image vicarious or repre- sentative of matter, ex hypothesis in itself unknown. But mark the vice of the procedure. We can only, 1°, Assert the existence of an external world, inasmuch The procedure vi- ^ •, . • , i ^ c\n as we knoAV it to exist; and we can only, 2 , Assert that one thing is representative of another, inasmuch as the thing represented is known, independently of the representation. But how does the hypothesis of a representative perception proceed ? It actually converts the fact into an hypoth- esis; actually converts the hypothesis into a fact. On this theory, we do not know the existence of an external world, except on the supposition that that which we do know, truly represents it as existing. The hypothetical realist cannot, therefore, establish the fact of the external world, except upon the fact of its representa- tion. This is manifest. We liave, therefore, next to ask him, how he knows the fact, that the external world is actually represented. A representation supposes something represented, and the repre- sentation of the external world supposes the existence of that Avorld. Now, the hy2:»othetical realist, when asked how he proves the reality of the outer world, which, ex hypothesis he does not know, can only say that he infers its existence from the flxct of its representation. But the fact of the representation of an external world supposes the existence of that world ; therefore, he is again at the point from which he started. He has been arguing in a circle. There is thus a see-saw between the hypothesis and the fact; the fact is assumed as an hypothesis; the hypothesis ex- plained as a fact; each is established, each is expounded, by the other. To account for the possibility of an unknown external world, the hypothesis of representation is devised ; and to account for the possibility of representation, we imagine the hypothesis of an external world. Lect. XXVI. METAPHYSICS. 365 The cosmothetic idealist thus begs the fact which he would explain. And, on the hypothesis of a representative perception, it is admitted by the philosophers themselves who hold it, that the ■descent to absolute idealism is a logical precipice, from which they can alone attempt to save themselves by appealing to the natural beliefs, — to the common-sense of mankind, that is to the testimony of that very consciousness to which their own hypothesis gives the lie. In the fourth place,, a legitimate hypothesis must save the phae- nomena which it is invented to ex|)lain, that is,* Fourfh, — That it [^ niust account for them adequately and with- »ave the phaenoraena . i- t j. j.- i-ii- T>i. ' , out exclusion, distortion, or mutilation. i>ut which it IS invented to explain. the hypothesis of a representative perception proposes to accomplish its end only by first destroying, and then attempting to recreate, the phaenomcna, for the fact of which it should, as a legitimate hypothesis, only aflbrd a reason. The total, the entire pluRuomenon to be explained, is the phtenomenon given in consciousness of the immediate knowl- edge by me, or mind, of an existence different frdtu nic, or mind. This phajnomenon, however, the hypothesis in Tiie hypothesis in question docs not preserve entire. On the con- question fumiers and , .. , -^ • ^ ^ • ^ ^^ • t ^ , , trary, it Jiews it into tAVo ; — into tlie immediate subverts the plia;noni- «non to be explained. knowledge by me, and into the existence of something os- sibility of an immediate knowledge of aught The hypothesis of different from, and external to, the mind. The Representation de- percipient mind must, therefore, be, somehow- pendent on subsidi- , , • t , ^,i i-^^ ary hypotheses. ^r Other, detcrinincd to represent the reality of which it is ignorant. Xow, here one of two alternatives is necessary; — either the mind blindly determines itself to this representation, or it is determined to it by some intelli- gent and knowing cause, different from itself The former alterna- tive would be preferable, inasmuch as it is the more simple, and assumes nothing hyperphysical, were it not irrational, as wJKjlly incompetent to account for the plnenomenon. On this alternative,, we should suppose, that the mind represented, and truly repre- sented, that of whose existence and qualities it knew nothing. A great effect is here assumed, absolutely without a cause; for we could as easily conceive the external world springing into existence without a creator, as mind representing that external world to itself,, without a knowledge of that which it represented. The manifest absurdity of this first alternative has accordingly constrained the profoundest cosmothetic idealists to call in supernatural aid by embracing the second. To say nothing of less illustrious schemes, the systems of Divine Assistance, of a Preestablished Harmony, and of the Vision of all things in the Deity, are only so many sub- sidiary hypotheses; — so many attempts to bridge, by supernatural machinery, the chasm between the representation and the reality, which all human ingenuity had found, by natural means, to be insu- perable. The hypothesis of a representative perce])tion thus ]>re- supposes a miracle to let it work. Dr. Brown and others, indeed, reject, as unj)hilosophical, these hyperphysical subsidiaries ; but they only saw less clearly the necessity for their admission. The rejection, indeed, is another inconsequence aidity, that the effect with resj)ect to us, is the same as if the percei»tion were instantaneous. " It may perhaps be asked, Avhat I mean by a point in the outline of a figure, and what it is that constitutes this point 0)ic object of nttention. The answer, I apprehend, is, that this point is the minimum visibile. If the point be less, we cannot perceive it ; if it be greater, it is not all seen in one direction. " If these observations be admitted, it will follow, that, without the fiiculty of memory, we could have had no perception of visible figure." ^ The same conclusion is attained, through a somewhat different process, by Mr. James Mill, in his ingenious The same view mnin- ji./iit-»j ^f V»- -J , , , „.,, Anaii/sis of the i^n and out of many to form one idea ; Avhich idea, however in reality complex, appears to be no less simple than any one of those of which it is compounded." ***** * * ^ " It is to this great law of association that we trace the forma- tion of our ideas of what we call external objects ; that is, the ideas- of a certain number of sensations, received together so frequently that they coalesce as it were, and are spoken of under the idea of unity. Hence, what we call the idea of a tree, the idea of a stone, the idea of a horse, the idea of a man. " In using the names, tree, horse, man, the names of what I call objects, I am referring, and can be referring, only to my own sensa- tions ; in fact, therefore, only naming a certain number of sensations, regarded as in a particular state of combination; that is, concomi- tance. Particular sensations of sight, of touch, of the muscles, are the sensations, to the ideas of which, color, extension, roughness, hardness, smoothness, taste, smell, so coalescing as to appear one idea, I give the name, idea of a tree. * ****** " Some ideas are by frequency and strength of association so closely combined, that they cannot be separated. If one exists, the other exists along with it, in spite of whatever effoi't we make to disjoin them. " For example ; it is not in our power to think of color, without thinking of extension ;. or of solidity, without figure. We have » Chap. iii. p. 75. — Ed. 2 Chap. iii. p. 68. — Ed. 3 Chap. iii. p. 70. —En Lect. XXVI. METAPHYSICS. 371 seen color constantly in combination with extension, — spread, as it were, upon a surtiice. We have never seen it except in this con- nection. Color and extension have been invariably conjoined. The idea of color, therefore, unitornily comes into the mind, briiii^ino- that of extension along with it ; and so close is the association, that it is not in our power to dissolve it. We cannot, if we will, think of color, but in combination with extension. The one idea calls up the other, and retains it, so long as the other is retained. " This great law of our nature is illustrated in a manner equally eti-iking, by the connection between the ideas of solidity and ligure. We never have the sensations from which the idea of solidity is derived, but in conjunction with the sensations whence the idea of figure is derived. If we handle anvthing solid, it is alwavs either round, scpiare, or of some other form. The ideas correspond with the sensations. If the idea of solidity rises, that of figure rises along with it. The idea of figure which rises, is, of course, more obscure than that of extension ; because figures being innumerable, the general idea is exceedingly complex, and hence, of necessity, obscure. But, such as it is, the idea of figure is always present when that of solidity is present ; nor can we, by any effort, think of the one with- out thinking of the other at the same time." Now, in o2)position to this doctrine, nothing appears to me clearer than the first alternative, — and that, in place Tlie counter alter- ' e ^• t ^ ^^ • • ,^ . . , of ascending upAvards from the minimum of ))er- native maintained ... against Stewart and ccptiou to its maxima, wc dcsceud from masses iiiii. to details. If the op])osite doctrine were cor- The doctrine of these rect, what woidd it iuvolve ? It would involve pliilosoplicT.s inijjlies, . . „ that we know the parts ^^ ^ primary inference, 'that, as we know the better tiian tiie whole. wliolc through tlic jiarts, WC should kuow the ])arts better than the whole. Thus, for examjde, it is suj)posed that we know the face of a friend, through the multi- tude of perceptions which Ave have of the different points of which it is made uj) ; in other Avords, that Ave should know the whole coun- tenance less vividly than Ave know the forehead and eyes, the nose and mouth, etc., and that we should knoAv each of these more feebly than Ave know the various ultimate ])oints, in fict, utu-onscious minima, of ))erceptions, Avhich go to constitute them. According to the doctrine in question, Ave ])erceiA-e only one of these ultimate points at the same instant, the others by memory incessantly rencAved. Noav let us take the face out of perception into nu^nory altogether. Let us close our eyes, and ht us represent in imagina- tion the countenance of our friend. This we can do Avith the utmost vivacity ; or, if avc see a jiicture of it, avc can iletermine. S72 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXVJ •with a consciousness of the most perfect accuracy, that the portrait is like or unlike. It cannot, therefore, be denied that we have the fullest knowledge of the face as a. whole, — that we are familiar with its expression, with the general result of its parts. On the hypothesis, then, of Stewart and Mill, how accurate should be our knowledge of these parts themselves. But make the experiment. You will find that, unless you have analyzed, — This supposition unless you have descended from a conspectus of the whole face to a detailed examination of oua. its parts, — with the most vivid impression of the constituted whole, you are almost totally ignorant of the con- stituent parts. You may probably be unable to say what is the color of the eyes, and if you attempt to delineate the mouth or nose, you will inevitably fail. Or look at the portrait. You may find it unlike, but unless, as I said, you have analyzed the countenance, unless you have looked at it with the analytic scrutiny of a paint- er's eye, you will assuredly be unable to say in what respect the artist has failed, — you will be unable to specify what constituent he has altered, though you are fully conscious of the fact and effect of the alteration. What we have shown from this example may equally be done from any other, — a house, a tree, a landscape, a concert of music, etc. But it is needless to multiply illustrations. In fact, on the doctrine of these philosophers, if the mind, as they maintain, were unable to comprehend more than one perceptible minimum at a time, the greatest of all inconceivable marvels would be, how it has contrived to realize the knowledge of wholes and masses which it has. Another refutation of this opinion might be drawn from the doctrine of latent modifications, — the obscure per- ceptions of Leibnitz, — of which we have recently treated. But this argument I think unnecessary. ^ 1 Show this also, 1", By the millions of acts of the Eye, § iii. p. 574, edit. 1807. —Ed.] 2°, of attention requisite in each of our percep- By imperfection of Touch,which is a syntlietic tious. [Cf Tir.T.Yonug'i Lectures on Natu- sense, as Sight is analytic. — Marginoi /oJJinff. rai PKUosophy, vol. ii. Ess. v. The Mechanism LECTURE XXVII. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. I. PERCEPTION. GENERAL QUESTIONS IN RELATION TO THE SENSB8. In my last Lecture, I was principally occupied in showing that the hypothesis of a Representative Perception consid- Recapitulation. ,..,^ , „ , V, ,., ered in itselt, and apart irom the grounds on which philosophers have deemed themselves authorized to reject the fact of consciousness, which testifies to our immediate perception of external things, violates, in many various ways, the laws of a legitimate hy^ pothesis ; and having, in the previous Lecture, shown you that the grounds on which the possibility of an intuitive cognition of external objects had been superseded, are hollow, I thus, if my reasoning be not erroneous, was warranted in establishing the conclusion that there is nothing against, but everything in favor of, the truth of conscious- ness, and the doctrine of immediate perception. At the conclusion of the Let^ture, I endeavored to prove, in opposition to Mr. Stewart and Mr. Mill, that we are not percipient, at the same instant, only of certain minima, our cognitions of wlTu li are afterwards, by memory or association, accumulated into masses ; but that we are at once and primarily perciinent of masses, and only require analysis to obtain a minute and more accurate knowledge of their parts, — that, in short, we can, within certain limits, make a single object out of many. For example, we can extend our attentive perception to a house, and to it as only one ol»ject ; or we can contemplate its parts, and con- sider each of these as separate objects.' Resuming consideration of the more important psychological ques- tions that have been agitated concerning the Senses, I proceed to take up those connected with the sense of Touch, 1 Sir W. Ilamilton here occanionaDy intro- senses. A.* the Lecture devoted to this sub- duccd uii account of the inechiinisin of tlie jeot mninly consists of a series of e.xtracfu organs of .Sense; observing the folldwinj; from Young and liostock, and is purely order. — Siglit, Hearing, Taste, Smell, and physiological, it is here omitted. SeeYoung'a Touch. This, he remarks, is the reverse of Ltcturei on Natural Phitofophy, vol. i. pp. .38", the order of nature, and is adopted by him 44' et fft/ ; vol ii. p. 574. (4to edit.) Rostock's hecaust> under Toiieh certain iiucstions arise, Phyfinlosy, pp. 692 tt «'/., 723, 729 — 733. (Sd tlie discussion of which requires some pre- edit.)— Eu. liminary knowledge of the nature of tlie 374 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXVH The problems whicli arise under this sense, may be reduced to two opposite questions. The first asks, May not all sen^^of'rouch.^""'^^'^ ^^^^ Senses be analyzed into Touch ? The second asks, Is not Touch or Feeling, considered as one of the five senses, itself only a bundle of various sense ? In regard to the first of these questions, — it is an opinion as old at least as Deraocritus, and one held by many of 1. ay a * ^ «n- the ancient physiologists, that the four senses of ges be analyzed into o- i . , Touch? Democritus. Sight, Hearing, Tastc, aiid Smell, are only modifi- Aristotie. cations of Touch. This opinion Aristotle records in the fourth chapter of his book On Sense and the Object of Sense {De Sensic et Sensili), and contents himself with refuting it by the assertion that its impossibility In what sense the af- . ... ci /• i e- t • «» .• „^ .„„* IS raamtest. bo lar, however, irom bemsr mam- nrmative correct. " ' » festly impossible, and, therefore, manifestly ab- surd, it can now easily be shown to be correct, if by touch is un- derstood the contact of the external object of perception with the organ of sense. The opinion of Democritus was revived, in modern times, by Telesius,^ an Italian philosopher of the sixteenth century, and who preceded Bacon and Descartes, as a reformer of philosophical methods. I say the opinion of Democritus can easily be shown to be correct ; for it is only a con< fusion of ideas, or of words, or of both together, PerceD^[on*'^ " ^^'^ ° ^*^ ^^^^ of the perception of a distant object, that is, of an object not in relation to our senses. An external object is only perceived inasmuch as it is in relation to oiar sense, and it is only in relation to our sense inasmuch as it is present to it. To say, for example, that we perceive by sight the sun or moon, is a false or an ellij^tical expression. We perceive nothing but certain modifications of light in ininiediate rehition to our organ of vision; and so far froniDr.Reid being philosophically correct, when he says that " when ten men look at the sun or moon, they all see the same indi- vidual object," the truth is that each of these persons sees a different object, because each person sees a diftercnt complement of rays, in relation to his individual organ,^ In fact, if we look alternately with 1 [De R'rurn yatura, lib. vii. c. viii.] From percipiuntur, quod eorum actio et vis sub- this reduction Telesius excepts Hearing. With stantia i % x ^ . , to be answered in the arnrmative : tor, thou<;li 1 hold that the other senses are not to be discrim- inated from Touch, in so far as Touch signifies merely the contact of the organ and tVie object of perception, yet, considering Touch as a special sense distinguished from the other four by other and peculiar •characters, it may easily, I tiiink, be shown, that if Sight and Hear- ing, if Smell and Taste, are to be divided from each other and from Touch Pro])er, under Touch there must, on the same analogy, be distinguished a plurality of special senses. This problem, like the other, is of ancient date. It is mooted ]iy Aristotle in the eleventh chapter of the second book De Animay but his Historical notices of opinion is left doubtful. Tlis followers were con- this problem. sequcutlv left doubtful upou the point.' Among Aristotle. , . , ', • L, . . ., , , Greek commentators. '"=^ <^^'"^'^^ interpreters, lliemistius- adopts the opinion, that there is a plurality of senses under 1 See Coniinbricenses, In An'it. de Aninia, off'air ko! /Sopt'tDS, Kai rwv ^fTo^tr kcu rrji' \nb. 11. c XI. ji. 32Ci. — Ld. -yfCtTiv niKpov Koi yKvKfo^- ^f 5f to^s, air- 2 In De Anima,\ih ii. c. xi. fol. 82a, (edit. to?s, iro\Aai flatv (vavriwfffts xal iraacu Aid., 1534.) OuK fffTi ula ata^a-ts rj aJ .... KpniKi^i', Tavrr^u rhf afirdrj- I'ryp^i/- (TK\-npbv, ^oAofJv jSopi' Kovpov ■vtv SxriTfp t))i' v\piv \fVKov Koi fifKovos \f7ov, Taxv. Cf. Aristotle, texts IW, 107. ^ I cenna. 876 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXVIL touch. Alexander ^ favors, but not decidedly, the opposite opinion, which was espoused by Simplicius^ and Philoponus.^ The doctrine of Themistius was, however, under various modifications, adopted by Averroes and Avicenna among the Arabian, and Arabian and Latin i * ,!• • » n -ht -n ■ -,• -r Schoolmen. "X Apolluians, Albcrtus Magnus, yEgidius, Jan- dunus, Marcellus, and many others among the Latin, schoolmen.* These, however, and succeeding philosophers,. were not at one in regard to the number of the senses,. Avhich they would distinguish. Themistius' and Avicenna**' Themistius and A vi- hi i -,-,,. allowed as many senses as there were different qualities of tactile feeling ; ■ but the number of these they did not specify. Avicenna, however, appears to have dis- tinguished as one sense the feeling of pain from the lesion of a wound, and as another, the feeling of titillation.^ Others, as ^gidi- us,^ gave two senses, one for the hot and cold, an- , ^' '"*■ other for the dry and moist. Averroes^ secerns a Averroes. _ . _ •' Qgjgjj sense of titillation and a sense of hunger and thirst. Cardan. Galen^" also, I should observe, allowed a sense of heat and cold. Among modern ])hilosophers, Cardan" distinguishes four senses of touch or feelins: : one of the four primary tactile qualities of Aristotle (that is, of cold and hot, and wet and dry) ; a second, of the light and heavy ; a third, of pleasure and pain; and a fourth, of titillation. His antagonist, the elder Scaliger,'* distinguished as a sixth special sense the sexual appetite, in which he has been followed by Bacon^' Voltaire" and others, aeon, u on, From these historical notices you will see how Voltaire, Locke. marvellously incorrect is the statement'^ that Locke was the first philosopher who originated this question, in al- 1 Problemata, ii. 62 (probably spurious. — '' See Conimbricenses, In De Anima, lib. ii^ Ed. c. xi. p. 327. — Ed. 2 In De ^niwa, lib. ii. c. xi. text 106, fol. ,„ ,t . , ,. « . ,, ... A. t., j-^ .11 iro-> T- ^" [Leidenfrost, De Mente Humana, c. II. ^ i, 44a* (edit. Aid. 152()- — Ed. J- ' > j . 3 In De Anima, lib. ii. c. xi. texts 106, 107. ^' — Ed. 11 De Subtilitate, \ih. xiii. See Reid's Works,. 4 See Conimbricenses, In De Anima, lib. ii. p. 867. — Ed. C. xi. p. 326. — Ed. i See preceding page, note 2, and Conimbri- eenses. as above, p. 327. — Ed. 13 [Sylvn Sylvarum, cent. vii. 693. Works, 6 See Conimbricenses, as above, p. 327.— edit. Montagu, iv. 361.] Ed. 7 ggg ,j,-^ _ £jj 14 See Reid^s Works, p. 124 ; and Poor, Theo- 8 See ibid. [Cf. De Raei, Oavis Philosoph.rr. "« Sensuum, pars i. § 34. p. 38. Voltaire, Naturalis, De Mentis Humanm FacuUatibus, ^ ^'"- P'^'^osophi.jue, art. SensaHon, reduces thi» 76, p. 366. D'Alembert, Melanges, t. v. p. 115. '*"''"* *" ''"'^ °*" 'r^"*'''- *'^- ^'"'"^ '^' ^^"'" Cf. Scaliger, De Subtilitate, Ex. cix., where P^^^'^''^ «»>• '^- ^"^"^^^ Completes, torn, vi he observes that, in paralysis, heat is felt, P" ^^l (edit. 1817). -Ed. after the power of apprehending gravity is 15 See Lectures on Intellectual Philosophy, bf gone.] John Young, LL. D , p. 80. 12 De Subtilitate, Ex. cclxxxvl. § 3. — Ed. Lect. xxvii. metaphysics. 377 lowing hunger and thirst to be the sensations of a sense different from tactile feeling. Ilutcheson, in his work on the Passions^ says, " the division of our external senses into five common classes is ridiculously imperfect. Some sen- sations, such as hunger and thirst, weariness and sickness, can be re duced to none of them ; or if they are reduced to feelings, they are percei)tions as different from the other ideas of touch, such as cold^ heat, hardness, softness, as the ideas of taste or smell. Others have hinted at an external sense different from all of these." What that, is, Hutcheson does not mention ; and some of our Scotch philoso- phers have puzzled themselves to conceive the meaning of his allusion. There is no doubt that he referred to the sixth sense of Scaliger.. Adaiu Smith, in his posthumous ^s.svry.s-,- observes. that hunger and thirst are objects of feeling, not of touch ; and that heat and cold are felt not as pressing on the ortran, but as in the organ, Kant'' divides the whole bodily senses into two, — into a Vital Sense {Setisiis Yagus), and an Organic Sense {Sensus Flxus). To the former class belong the sensations of heat and cold, shuddering,. 2(od.l8i10) —En. Sense from the Orfraiiie Senses. See also ■"• .4/io/»i.'i>, ^ 15. — El). (Previously to iHibner's /Ji-wrr/a/io/i (1704 1. CI. (iniithuiiien, Kant, whose Anlhropolugie was first published Anthnipnlosif, ^ A''), p. .3'U ("(lit. ISIO) ] in 179S. 1.^'ideiifroet, in his De Menu Humana. * Lectures xvli. xviii — Ed 48 ^T8 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXYIX sensation proper predominates ; the sense of Sight and Heai-ing per- taining to the first, those of Smell and Taste to the second. Here «ach is decidedly either perceptive or sensitive. Bnt in Tonch, under tlie vulgar attribution of qualities, perception and sensation both find their maximum. At the finger-points, this sense would give us ob- jective knowledge of the outer world, with the least possible alloy of subjective feeling; in hunger and thirst, etc., on the contrary it •would afford us a subjective feeling of our own state, with the least possible addition of objective knowledge. On this ground, there- fore, we ought to attribute to different senses perceptions and sensa- tions so different in decree. But, in the second place, it is not merely in the opposite degree of these two counter elements that this distinction 2. From the different jg to be founded, but likewise on the different quality of the percep- t^ ^ ^^ i> , i • i tion< and sensations q^iJ^hty oi tiie groups oi the perceptions and sen- themseives. satious thcmselves. There is nothing similar be- tween these different groups, except the negative circumstance that there is no special organ to which positively to refer them ; and, therefore, they are exclusively slumped together under that sense which is not obtrusively marked out and isolated by the mechanism of a peculiar instrument. Limiting, therefore, the special sense of Touch to that of objective information, it is sufficient to say that this sense fepecia ense o -^^^^ -^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^j^^ cxtremitv of the nerves which Toucli, — Its sphere and _ _ . . * . . organic seat. terminate in the skin ; its principal organs are the finger-points, the toes, the lips, and the tongue. Of these, the first is the most j)erfect. At the tips of the fingers, a tender skin covers the nervous papillae, and here the nail serves not only as a protecting shield to the organ, but, likewise, by affording an opposition to the body which makes an impression on the finger-ends, it renders more distinct our perception of the nature of its surface. Through the great mobility of the fingers, of the Avrist, and of the shoulder-joint, we are able with one, and still more eff"ectually, with both hands, to manipulate an object on all sides, and thereby to attain a knowledge of its figure. We likewise owe to the sense of Touch a perception of those conformations of a body, accord- ing to which we call it rough or smooth, hard or soft, sharp or blunt. The repose or motion of a body is also perceived through the touch. To obviate misunderstanding, I should, however, notice that the proper organ of Touch — the nervous papilla? — requii'es as the con- dition of its exercise, the movement of the voluntary muscles. This condition however, ought not to be viewed as a part of the organ itself. This being understood, the perception of the weight of a I Lect. xxvii. metaphysics. 379 body will not full under tliis sense, as the nerves lying under the epidermis or scurf skin have little or no share in Proper organ of ^j^j^ knowledge. We owe it almost exclusively Touch rwiuires, as . condition of its exer- to the cousciousness we have of the exertion of cise, the movement of the muscles, requisite to lift with the hand a the voluntary mus- lieavy bodv from the ground, or when it is laid on the shoulders or head, to keep our own body erect, and to carry the burthen fi-ora one place to another. I next proceed to consider two couiUer-questions, which are still agitated by philosophers.' The first is, — Does Two counter ques- gj j^^ ^^.^^^..^ ^^ ^^ oriirinal knowledge of exten- tions regarding sphere .^ '^ . ^ ^f gjght. sion, or do we not owe this exclusively to Touch ? The second is, — Does Touch afford us an original knowledge of extension, or do we not owe this exclusively to Sight ? Both questions are still undetermined ; and consequently, the vulgar belief is also unestablished, that we obtain a knowledge of extension originally both from sight and touch. I commence, then, with the first, — Does Vision aflfbrd us a primary knowledge of extension, or do we not owe this 1. Does Vision afford "- . us a primary knowi- knowledge exclusively to Touch ? But, before edge of extension? or entering ou its discussion, it is proper to state to dowe not owe this ex- you, by preamble, what kind of extension it is clusively to Touch? Ii * *i' ii • t ^ x • i^ i tliat those would vindicate to sight, who answer this question in the afiirmative. The whole primary objects of sight, then, are colors, and extensions, and forms or figures of extension. And here you will observe, it is not all kind of extension and form that is attributed to sight. It is not figured extension in all the three dimensions, but only extension as involved in plane figures ; that is, only length and breadth. It has generally been admitted by ])hilosophers, after Aristotle, that color is the pro{)er object of sight, and that Color the proper ob- , • , ^ ^ • V^ i x i , „. . ^,. extension and nijure, common to siijhtand toucli, ject of Sight. Tins rr^ ^ o generally admitted. -i'"*^' <^"'ly accidentally its objects, becausc supposed in the perception of color. Tiie first philosopher, with whom I am acquainted, who doubted or d('nieii 1....1 1 • «'i: Mas bi'rkelev : but tiie clear expression 01 liis ■deny that extension ... * . . . , object of Sight. oi)inion i.s contained in his Defence of the Theory of Vision^ an extremely rare tract, wliiih has escaped the knowledge of all his editors and biographers, and is con- se(iM('ntlv not to be found in anv of the editions Condillac. , .■,,,,_ ■, . , 01 ills collc'cttMl works. It was almost certainly, therefore, wholly unknown to C'oiidillac, who is the next philoso- 380 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXVll. pher who maintained the same opinion. This, however, he did not do either very exj^licitly or witliout change; for the new doctrine which he hazards in his earlier work, in his later a ou iniere. j^^ again tacitlv replaces by the old.' After its. Stewart. » . . . surrender by Condillac, the opinion was, however, supported, as I find, by Labouliniere.^ Mr. Stewart maintains that extension is not an object of sight. " I formerly," he says, "had oc- casion to mention several instances of very intimate associations formed between two ideas which have no necessarji. connect ion with each other. One of the most remarkable is, that which exists in every person's mind between the notions of color and extensioit. The former of these words expresses (at least in the sense in which we commonly employ it) a sensation in the mind, the latter denotes a quality of an external object; so that there is, in fact, no more con- nection between the two notions than between those of pain and of solidity ; and yet in consequence of our always perceiving extension at the same time at which the sensation of color is excited in the- mind, we find it impossible to thiidv of that sensation without con- ceivins: extension alonij with it." ^ But before Hartleian School. t . ^ , . . ,, , and alter btewart, a doctnne, virtually the sarae> is maintained by the Hartleian school ; who assert, as a consequence of their universal principle of association, tliat the perception of color suggests the notion of extension.'' Then comes Dr. Brown, who, in his Lectures^ after having repeat- edly asserted, that it is, and always has been^ the universal oj)inion of philosophers, that the superficial extension of length and breadth becomes known to u» by sight originally, proceeds, as he says, for the first time, to con- trovert this opinion;^ though it is wholly impossible that he could 1 The order of Condillac's opinions is the space, do we, by means of that sensation, reverse of that stated in the text. In his acquire also the proper idea of extension, as. earliest work, the Orisinr ties Coniwissances composed of parts exterior to each other ' In Humaines, part i sect, vi., he combats Berke- otlier words, does the sensation of different ley's theory of vision, and maintains that colors, which is necessary to the distinction exten.sion exterior to the eye is discernible by of parts at all, necessarily suggest different sight. Subsequently, in the Traite c/es Sensa- and contiguous localities' This question is tions, j)art i. ch. xi., i)art ii. ch. iv. v., he explicitly answered in the negative by Con- asserts that the eye is incapable of perceiving dillac, and in the affirmative by Sir W. Ham- extension beyond itself, aiid that this idea is ilton. Cf The Tlienry of Vision i-indicateil and originally due solely to the sense of touch. erplained. London, 1733. See especially, §f This opinion he again repeats in VArt de Pen- 41, 42, 44, 45, 46. — Ed. ser, part i ch. xi. But neither Condillac nor 2 See Reid^s Works, p. 868. — Ed. Berkeley goes so far as to say that color, re- 3 Elements of tlie Pliilosophy of the Human garded as an affection of the visual organism. Mind, vol. i. chap. v. part ii. § 1. Works, vol. is apprehended as absolutely unextended, as ii. p. 306. [Cf Ibid., noteV. — Ed] a mathematical point. Kor is this the ques- fsee Vriestiey, Hartley^s Theonj, [ii-op. '20. tion in dispute But granting, as Condillac .Tames Mill, Analysis of Human Min /. \ ol. i in his later view e.xpressly asserts, that color, p. 73. — Ed. as a visual sensation, necessarily occupies 5 Lecture xxviii. — E». Lect. XXVn. METAPHYSICS. 381 have been ignorant that the same had been done, at least by Con- dillac and Stewart. Brown himself, however, was to be treated somewhat in the fashion in which he treats his predecessors. Some twenty years ago, there were published the Lectures on Ifitellectual Philosoj^hy, by the late John Young, LL. D., Professor of Philosophy in Belfast College ; a work which certainly shows considerable shrewdness and ingenuity. This unfortunate speculator seems, however, to have been fated, in almost every instance, to be anticipated by Brown; and, as far as I have looked into these Lectures, I have been amused with the never-failing preamble, — of the astonishment, the satisfaction, and so forth, which the author expresses on finding, on the publication of Brown's Jjectures, that the opinions which he himself, as he says, had always held and taught, were those also which had obtained the countenance of so distinguished a philosopher. The coincidence is, however, too systematic and precise to be the effect of accident; and the identity of opinion between the two doctoi's can only (plagi- arism apart), be explained by borrowing from the hypothesis of a Preestablished Harmony between their minds.^ Of course, they are both at one on the problem under consideratlon.- But to return to Brown, by whom the argument against the common doctrine is most fully stated. He I'.rown (juoted. says : "The universal oj)iiiion of philosophers is, that it is not color merely which it (the simple original sensation of A'ision) involves, but extension also, — that there is a visible figure, as well as a tan- gible fif'-URN — and that llic visible figure involves, in our instant original jierception, superficial length and breadth, as the tangible figure, which we learn to see, involves length, breadth, and thickness, "Th;it it is impossible for us, at jiresent, to separate, in the sensa- tion of vision, the color from the extension, I admit ; though not more completely impossible", ihaii it is for us to look on the thou- sand feet of a meadow, and to perceive only the small inch of greenness on our retina; and the one impossibility, as much as the other, I conceive to arise only from intimate association, subsequent to the original sensations of sight. Nor ' n affected by certain sensations, does not necessa- rily involve the notion of extension. Indeed, in all those cases in which it is supposed, that a certain diffusion of sensations excites the notion of tjxtension, it Beems to be taken for granted that the being knows aJ/eady, that he has an extended body, over which these sensations are thus diffused. Nothing but the sense of touch, however, and noUiing but tliose kinds of touch which imply the idea of continued resistance, can give us any notion of body at all. All mental affections which are regarded merely as feelings of the mind, and which do not give us a conception of their external causes, can never be known to arise from anything which is ex- tended or solid. So far, however, is the mere sensation of color from being able to produce this, that touch itself, as felt in many of its modifications, could give us no idea of it. That the sensation of color is quite unfit to give us any idea of extension, merely by its being diffused over a certain expanse of the retina, seems to be cor- roborated by what we experience in tlie other senses, even after we are perfectly acquainted with the notion of extension. In hearing, for instance, a certain quantity of the tympanum of the ear must be affected by the pulsations of the air ; yet it gives us no idea of the dimensions of the part affected. The same may, in general, be said of taste and smell. 1 Lect. xxix. p. 185 (edit. 1830). — Ed. •'^•,' Lect. XXVII. METAPHYSICS. 383 Now, in all their elaborate argumentation on this subject, these philosophers seem never yet to have seen the The perception of j-Q^d difficulty of their doctrine. It can easily be extension necessarily ^j^^^^^^ ^j^^^ ^^^ perceiition of Color involvCS the given in the percep- _ * '_ tion of colors. perception of extension. It is admitted that we have by sight a perception of colors, conse^ quently, a perception of the difference of colors. But a i)erception of the distinction of colors necessarily involves the perception of a discriminating line ; for if one color bo laid beside or upon another, we only distinguish them as different by perceiving that they limit each other, which limitation necessarily affords a breadthless line, — a line of demarcation. One color laid upon another, in fact, gives a line returning upon itself, that is, a figure. But a line and a figure are modifications of extension. The perception of exten- sions therefore, is necessarily given in the perception of colors. i LECTURE XXVIII. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. I. PERCEPTION. RELATIONS OF SIGHT AND TOUCH TO EXTENSION. In^ my last Lecture, after showing you that the vulgar distribu- tion of the Senses into five, stands in need of Reoftpituiation. correction, and stating what that correction is, I proceeded to the consideration of some of the more important philosophical problems, Avhich arise out of the relation of the senses to the elementary objects of Perception. I then stated to you two counter-problems in relation to the genealogy of our empirical knowledge of extension ; and as, on the one hand, some philosophers maintain tliat we do not perceive extension by the eye, but obtain this notion through touch, so, on the other, there are philosophers wlio hold that we do not perceive extension through the touch, but exclusively by the eye. The con- sideration of these counter-questions will, it is evident, involve a consideration of the common doctrine intermediate between these <^xtreme opinions, — that we derive our knowledge of extension from both senses. I keep aloof from this discussion the opinion, that spnce, under which extension is included, is not an empirical or adventitious notion at all, but a native form of thought; for admitting this, still if space be also a necessary fonn of the external world, criminated in vision, are, or may be, placed side by side in imme- diate juxtaposition; or, one may limit another by being superin^ duced partially over it. A fourth position is equally indisputable, — that the contrasted colors, thus bounding each other, will form by their meeting a visible line, and that, if the superinduced color be surrounded by the other, this line will return upon itself, and tlius constitute the outline of a visible figure. These four jjositions command a peremptory assent; they are all self-evident. But their admission at once explodes the paradox under discussion. And thus: A line is extension in one dimension, — length; a figure is extension in two, — length and breadth. Therefore, the vision of a line is a vision of extension in length ; the vision of a figure, the vision of extension in length and breadtli. This is an inimediate demonstration of the impossibility of the opinion in (piestion ; and it is curious that the ingenuity which suggested to its supporters the ])etty and recondite objections, they have so operosely combated, should not have shown them this gigantic difficulty, which lay ol)trusively before them. So far, in fiict, is the doctrine whicli divorces the j)erceptions of color and extension from being true, that we Extension cannot cannot evcii rej)resent extension to the mind bo renrcsiMited to the , ^ t it-^i i „. , . , excei)t as colored. \\ hen we come to tlie con- mnid except as col- ' ored. sideration of the Representative Faculty, — Imagination, — I shall endeavor to show vou {what has not been observed by psychologists), that in the rcpre- 49 •S86 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XXVIIL sentation, — in the imagination, of sensible objects, we always represent them in the organ of Sense through Sensible objects rep- i • i • • n • i i mi , , . , which we ongmaily perceived them. 1 hus, we reKented, in Imagina- » ^ i ' tion, in the organ of .cannot imagine any particular odor but in the Sense through which nosc; uor any sound but in the ear; nor any we originally per- ^^^^^ ^^^^ j,^ ^-^^ j^^^^^^j^ ^^^^^^ -^ ^^^^ ^^^^^j^^ ^^^ ccivcd tlicm* sent any joain we have ever felt, this can only be done through the local nerves. In like manner, when Ave imagine any modification of light we do so in the eye ; and it is a curious confirmation of this, as is well knoAvn to physiologists, that when not only the external apparatus of the eye, which is a mere me- chanical instrument, but the real oigan of sight, — the optic nei'\'es and their thalami, have become diseased, the patient loses, in pro- portion to the extent of the morbid affection, either wholly or in part, the fiiculty of recalling visible phtenomena to his mind. I mention this at present in order to show, that Vision, the sense by Vision is not Only a sense comjietent to the \yer~ preeminence compe- ^l^,-, ^f extension, but the Sense Kar c^ovw, tent to the perception '■ . , , . . of extension. if not exclusively, SO competent, — and this in the following manner: You either now know, or will hereafter learn, that no notion, whether native and general, or adventitious and generalized, can be represented in imagination, except in a concrete or singular example. For instance, you can- not imagine a triangle Avhich is not either an equilateral, or an isosceles, or a scalene, — in short, some individual form of a trian- gle ; nay, more, you cannot imagine it, except either large or small, on paper, or on a board, of wood or of iron, white or black or green ; in short, except under all the special determinations which give it, in thought, as in existence, singularity or individuality. The same happens, too, with extension. Space I admit to be a native form of thought, — not an adventitious notion. We cannot but think it. Yet I cannot actually represent space in imagination, stript of all individualizing attributes. In this act, I can easily annihilate all corporeal existence, — I can imagine empty space. But there are two attributes of which I cannot divest it, that is, shape and color. This may sound almost ridiculous at first state- ment, but if you attend to the phtenomenon, you Avill soon be satisfied of its truth. And first as to shape. Space or Extension Your minds are not infinite, and cannot, tliere- cannot e represen e fore, positively conceive infinite spacc. Infinite in Imagination with- x j i out shape. spacc is Only conceived negatively, — only by conceiving it inconceivable; in other words, it cannot be conceived at all. But if we do our utmost to realize this Lect. XXVIII. METAPHYSICS. 387 notion of infinite extension l)y :i positive act of imagination, how do we proceed? AYliy, we tliink out from a centre, and endeavor to carry tlie circumference of the sphere to infinity. But by no one effort of imagination can we accomplisli this; and as we cannot do it at once by one infinite act, it would require an eternity of successive finite efibrts, — an endless series of iinai^ininixs bevond imaginings, to equalize the thought witli its object. The very attempt is contradictory. But when we leave off, has the imagined space a shape? It has: for it is finite; and a finite, tliat is, a bounded, si)ace, constitutes a figure. .What, then, is this figure? It is spherical, — necessarily spherical ; for as the effort of imagin- ing space is an effort outwards from a centre, the space represented in imaginiition is necessarily circular. If there be no shape, there has been no positive imagination ; and for any other shape than the orbicular, no reason can be assigned. Such is the figure of space in a free act of phantasy. This, however, will be admitted without scruple ; for if real space, as it is well described by St. Augustin, be a sphere whose centre is CNcrywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere,^ imagined space may be allowed to be a sphere whose circumference is represented at any distance from its centre. But will its color be as easily al- lowed ? In ex])lanation of this, you Avill observe Nor witliout color. i t i' • * that under color I of course include black as well as Mhite; the transparent as well as the opaque, — in short, any modification of light or darkness. This being understood, I main- tain that it is impossible to imagine figure, extension, space, except as colored in some determinate mode. You may represent it under any, but you must rcpi'cscnt it under some, modification of light, — color. j\[ake the ex])eriment, and you will find I am correct. But I anticipate an objection. The non-iiercei^- Objcctiou obviated. . n i i • i -i- o •>• ■ • ■ tion of color oi- the inanuitA' of (hscruninatinLf colors, is a case of not Tiiifrc(|U(nt occurrence, though the subjects of this deficiency arc, at the same time, not otherwise defective in 1 The editors liavc not bopu able to discover more usually cited as a definitimi of the this passage in St. Augustin. As ijuoled in Deity. In this relation it has been attributed the tc.\t, with reference to space, it closely to the mythical Ilcrmes Trismegistus (see resembles the words of Pascal, Pfnscrf, part Alex. Ales., Siimmn Thcnl. part i. J ^ » y that the gloomy extension which imagination presents to us as an actual object, is by no means the pure a priori representation of space. It is very true, that this is only an empir- ical or adventitious image, which itself supposes the pure or the visionless representation of space or extension, — the attentive ob- servation of a j)erso!i born blind, which I formerly instituted, in the year 1785, and, again, in relation to the point in question, have con- tinued for three whole weeks, — this observation, I say, has con- vinced me, that the sense of touch, by itself, is altogether incompe- tent to afford us the representation of extension and space, and is not even cognizant of local exteriority (<>( rfh'rhes Ai/iieui(iit(f>r.f>i//i)^ in a word, that a man deprived of sight has absolutely no i)erception of an outer world, beyond the existence of something effective, dif- ferent from his own feeling of jiassivity, and in general only of the numerical diversity, — shall I say of impressions, or of things? In 390 METAPHYSICS Lect. XXVUI fact, to those born blind, time serves instead of space. Vicinity and distance means in their mouths notliing more than the shorter or longer time, the smaller or greater number of feelings, which they find necessary to attain from some one feeling to some other. That a person blind from birth employs the language of vision, — that may occasion consider.a1>le error, and did, indeed, at the commence- ment of my observations, lead me wrong ; but, in point of fact, he knows nothing of things as existing out of each other; and (this in particular I have very clearly remarked), if objects, and the parts of his body touched by them, did not make diiferent kinds of im- pression on his nerves of sensation, he would take everything exter- nal for one and the same. In his own body he absolutely did not discriminate head and foot at all by their distance, but merely by the diiference of the feelings (and his perception of such difference was incredibly fine), which he experienced from the one and from the other; and, moreover, through time. In like manner, in external bodies, he distinguished their figure merely by the varieties of im- pressed feelings ; inasmuch, for example, as the cube, by its angles, affected his feeling differently from the sphei-e. Xo one can con- ceive how deceptive is the use of language accommodated to vision. When my acute antagonist appeals to Cheselden's case, which proves directly the reverse of Avhat it is adduced to refute, he does not con- sider that the first visual impressions Avhich one born blind receives after couching, do not constitute vision. For the very reason, that space and extension are empirically only possible through a percep- tion of sight, — for that very reason, must such a patient, after his eyes are freed from the cataract, first learn to live in space ; if he could do this previously, then M'ould not the distant seem to him near, — the separate would not appear to him as one. These are the grounds which make it impossible for me to believe empirical space in a blind person ; and from these I infer, that this form of sensibility, as Mr. Kant calls it, and which, in a certain signification, may very properly be styled a pure representation, cannot come into consciousness otherwise than througli the medium of our visual perception ; without, however, denying that it is something merely subjective, or affirming that sight affords anything similar to this kind of representation. The example of blind geometers would likewise argue nothing against me, even if the geometers had been born blind ; and this they were not, if, even in their early infancy, they had seen a single extended object." ' To what Platner has here stated I Avould add, froin personal 1 Philosophiiche Aphorismen, vol. i. § 765, p. 439 et seq , edit 1793 — Ed. Lect. xxviit. mi:t a physics. 891 experiment, and obseivatiou upon others, that if any one who is not blind will go into a room of an unusual shape, rhienon.e,mti.at fa- ^^.jj^jK. uulcnown to him, and into which no rav vor Platuer's doctrine. . n t i of light is allowed to penetrate, he may grope about for hours, — he may touch and manipulate every side and corner of it; still, notwithstanding every endeavor, — notwithstand- ing all the previous subsidiary notions he brings to the task, he will be unable to form any correct idea of the room. In like man- ner, a blind-folded ])erson will make the most curious mistakes in regard to the figure of objects presented to him, if these are of any considerable circumference. But if the sense of touch in such favor- able circumstances can effect so little, how much less could it afford Tis any knowledge of forms, if the assistance which it here brings with it from uur visual concei)tions, Avere wholly wanting? This view is, I think, strongly confirmed by the famous case of a young gentleman, blind from birth, couched by Supported also by Chesclden ; — u case remarkable for being per- Cheselden's case of i .i ^ • i • i .^i ^ x ^^j^. ^ haps, of those cured, that m wliich the cataract was most jicrfect (it only allowed of a distinc- tion of light and darkness) ; aner of intervening objects, and other similar acci- dents, all of which obviously depend upon previous experience, and which we are in the habit of associating with different distances, ■without, in each particular case, investigating the cause on which our judgment is founded. The conclusions of science seem in this case to be decisive ; and yet the whole question is thrown into doubt by the analogy of the lkct. xxvm. METAPHYSICS. 395 Berkeley's proof thrown into doubt by the analogy of the lower animals. lower animals. If in man the perception of distance be not origi- nal but accpiired, the perception of distance must be also acquired by them. But as this is not the case in regard to animals, this confirms the rea- soning of those who would explain the percep- tion of distance in man, as an original, not as an acquired, knowledge. That the Berkeleian doctrine is opposed by the analogy of the lower animals, is admitted by one of its most intelligent supporters, — Dr. Adam Smith. ^ " That, antecedent to all experience," says Smith, " the young of at least the greater part of animals possess some Adam Smith quoted. ... ^. /• ^i • i • i i mstmctive perception ot this kind, seems abun- irds which make their nests upon the ground, with tlie greater pari of those which are ranked by LimuT?us in the orders of the hen rnd tlie goose, and of many of those long- shanked and wading birds whicli he places in the order that he dis- tiuLjuishes bv tlie name of (rialla'. "It seems difficult to suppose that man is the only animal of which the young are not endowed with some instinctive perception of this kiii.l. The Adung of tlie Imiuaii species, however, continue so long in a state of entire dependency, they must be so long carried about in the arms of their mothers or of their nurses, that such an iustino 1 See R-isnys — O/tIf External Senses, p. 299—304. edit. 1800. — Ed. 396 M E f A P H Y S I C S . Lect. XXV 111 tive perception may seem less necessary to them than to any other race of animals. Before it Could be of any use to them, observation and experience may, by the known principle of the association of ideas, have sufficiently connected in theii- young minds each visible object with the corresponding tangible one which it is fitted to rep- resent. Nature, it may be said, never bestows upon any animal any ficulty Avhich is not either necessary or useful, and an instinct of this kind would be altogether useless to an animal which must necessarilv acquire the knowledge which the instinct is given to supply, long before that instinct could be of any use to it. Children, however^ appear at so very early a period to know the distance, the shape, and magnitude of the different tangible objects which are presented ta them, that I am disposed to believe that even they may have some instinctive perception of this kind ; though possil)ly in a much weaker degree than the greater part of other animals. A child that is scarcely a month old, stretches out its hands to feel any little play- thing that is presented to it. It distinguishes its nurse, and the other people who are much about it, from strangers. It clings to the for- mer, and turns away from the latter. Hold a small looking-glass before a child of not more than two or three months old, and it will stretch out its little arms behind the glass, in order to feel the child which it sees, and which it imagines is at the back of the glass. It is deceived, no doubt ; but even this sort of deception sufficiently demonstrates that it has a tolerably distinct apprehension of the ordinary perspective of Vision, which it cannot well have learnt from observation and experience." LECTURE XXIX. THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. II. SELF-COXSCIOUSNESS. Having, in our last Lecture, concluded the consideration of Exter- , . nal Perception, I may now briefly recapitulate Becapitulatiou. . „ ,. . . , Principal points of Certain rcsults or the discussion, and state ni what difference between the principal respects the doctrine I would maintain, Author's doctrine of diffei-g iVom that of Reid and Stewart, whom I rerception, and that , ^ i i i • i-^ ^i ^ i.> of Reid and Stewart. suppose always to hold, in reality, the system ot an Intuitive Perception. In the first place, — in regard to the relation of the external object to the senses. The general doctrine on this sub- 1. In regard to the jj.^^^^ jj^ ^1,,,^ given by Reid : " A law of our nature relation of the exter- ' ,. .^•' • .1 ^ • ^ , .. ,, ,, recrardini? ix'rception is, tliat we perceive no ob- nal object to the sen- ^ ■- * ' _ ' _ ^ "^ ject, unless some impression is made upon the «es organ of sense, either by the immediate applica- tion of the obji'ct, or by some medium which passes between the object and the organ. In two of our senses, viz.. Touch and Taste, there must be an immediate ai)))lication of the object to the organ. In the other three, the object is perceived at a distance, but still by means of a ni('(lium, by which some impression is made U])on the organ." ' Now this, I sliowod you, is incorrect. The only object over {per- ceived is the object in immediate contact, — in immediate relation, with the organ. What Reid, and philosophers in general, call the distant object, is wholly unknown to Perception ; by reasoning we may connect the object perceived with certain antecedents, — certain causes; but these, as the result of an inference, cannot be the objects of percejition. Tl:e only objects of ))erception are in all the senses equally immediate. Thus the ol)ject of my vision at present is not the paper or letters at a foot from my eye, but the rays of light re- flected from these upon the retina. The object of your liearing is 1 Inteliectnal Powers, Essay ii. c. ii. [ Works, p. 247. — Ed.] 398 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIX. not the vibrations of ray larynx, nor the vibrations of the interven- ing air ; but the vibrations determined thereby in the cavity of the internal ear, and in immediate contact with the auditory nerves. In both senses, the external object perceived is the last effect of a series of unperceived causes. But to call these unperceived causes the ohjert of perception, and to call the perceived effect, — the real object, only the iiiediuni of perception, is either a gross error or an . unwarrantable abuse of language. My conclu- in all the senses, the gion is, tlierefore, that, in all the senses, the ex- external object In con- .... • i i t tact with the organ. Vernal objcct IS m contact with the organ, and thus, in a certain signification, all the senses are only modifications of Touch. Tliis is the simple fact, and any other statement of it is either the effect or the cause of misconception. In the second place, — in relation to tlie number and consecutimi of the elementary phaenomena, — it is, and must 2. In regard to the \^^^ adtnitted, on all hands, that perception must number and consecu- , tit • • c ^\ ^ ^ , , ^ be preceded bv an impression oi tlie external tion ot the elementary i - _'■ phenomena. objcct on the scnsc ; in other words, that the material reality and the organ must be brought into contact, previous to, and as the condition of, an act of this fac- ulty. On tliis point there can be no dispute. But the case is differ- ent in regard to tlie two following. It is asserted by philosophers in general : — 1°. That tne impression made on the organ must be propa- gated to the brain, before a cognition of the object Common doctrine of I'^^t^^ place in the mind, — in other words, that philosophers regard- . .. , t -\ -\ . • : ,, . . an orsxanjc action must precede and determine lug the organic im- . pression. the intellectual action ; and, 2°. Tliat Sensation Proper pi-ecedes Perception Proper. In regard to the former assertion, — if by this were only meant, that the mind does not perceive external objects out of relation to its bodily organs, ami that the relation of the object to the organism, as the condition of perception, must, therefore, in the order of nature, be viewed as prior to the cognition of that relation, — no ob- respec in- jpc^ion could be made to the statement. But if accurate. ... it be intended, as it seems to be, that the organic affection precedes in the order of time the intellectual cognition, — of this we have no proof whatever. The fact as stated w'ould be inconsistent with the doctrine of an intuitive perception ; for if the organic affection were clironologically prior to the act of knowledge, the immediate perception of an object different from our bodily senses would be impossible, and the extei'nal Avorld would thus be represented only in the subjective affections of our own organism. It is, therefore, more correct to hold, that the corporeal move- Lect. XXIX. METAPHYSICS. 39& raent and llie mental perception are simultaneous ; and in place of holding that the intellectual action commences after the bodily has terminated, — in place of holding tliat the mind is connected with the body only at the central extremity of the nervous system, it ia more simple and philosophical to suppose that it is united Avith the nervous system in its whole extent. The mode of this union is of course inconceivable : but the latter hypotliesis of union is not more inconceivable than the former ; and, while it has the testimony of consciousness in its favor, it is otherwise not obnoxious to many seri- ous objections to wliich the other is exposed. In regard to the latter assertion, — \iz., that a perception jiroper is always preceded by a sensation proper, — this, Relation of Sensa- though maintained bv Reid and Stewart, is even tion proper to rercep- •,. i tion proper. more mamtestly erroneous tlian the lormer asser- tion, touching the precedence of an organic to a mental action. In summing up Reid's doctrine of Percejition, Mi-. Stewart says : " To what does the statement of Reid amount ? Merely to this : that the mind is so formed, that certain impressions produced on our organs of sense by external objects, are followed by correspondent sensations ; and that these sensations (which liave no more resemblance to the qualities of matter, than the words of a language have to the things they denote) are followed by a percep- tion of tlie existence and (pialities of the bodies by which the impres- sions are made." ^ You will iind in Reid's own works expressions which, if taken literally, would make us believe that he held percep- tion to be a mere inference from sensation. Thus : " Observing that the agreeable sensation is raised when the rose is near, and ceases when it is removed, I am le • (if I may so speak), out of which no object can be knovvn. Thus Ave only know, through Self-consciousness, the phaenomena of the internal world, as modifications of the indivisible ego or conscious unit ; we only know, through Perception, the phe- nomena of the external world, under space, or as modifications of the extended and divisible non-ego or known plurality. That the forms are native, not adventitious, to the mind, is involved in their necessity. "What I cannot but think, must be a jynori, or original to thought ; it cannot be engendered by experience uiwn custom. But this is not a subject the discussion of which concerns us at l>resent. It may be asked, if self or ego be the form of Self-consciousness, why is tlio not-self, the non-ego, not in like man- Olijection obvintca. ,i i ,, r. r- ^-, .• o T .1 • T ner calliMl the form ot Perception.'' lo tlus i reply, that the not-self is only a negation, and, though it discrimi- nates the objects of the external cognition from those of the inter- nal, it does not afford to tlie former any positive bond of union among themselves. This, on the contrary, is siipjilied to them by the form of sftace, out of which they can neither be perceived, nor imagined by the mind ; — space, therefore, as the positive condition under which the non-eiro is necessarilv known and imafjined, and through which it receives its unity in consciousness, is jiroperly said to afford the condition or form of External Perception. But a more important question maybe started. If space, — if extension, be a necessary form of thought, this, it may be argued, proves th:it the mind itself is extended. The reasoning here pro- ceeds upon the assumption, that the qualities of the subject kuow- 51 402 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIX. mg must be similar to the qu:ilities of the object known. Tliis, as I have already stated, ^ is a mere philosophical If space be a neces- crotchet, — an assumption without a shadow sarj oim o wug , ^y^^ ^f probability in its favor. That the mind IS tlie mind jtself ex- ^ •' , _ tended' has the powcr of perceiving extended objects, is no ffround for holdins; that it is itself extended. Still less can it be maintained, that because it has ideally a native or necessary conception of space, it must really occupy space. Nothing can be more absurd. On this doctrine, to exist as extended, is sup- posed necessary in order to think extension. But if this analogy hold good, the sphere of ideal space which the mind can imagine, ought to be limited to the sphere of real space which the mind actually fills. This is not, however, the case ; for though the mind be not absolutely unlimited in its power of conceiving space, still the compass of thought may be viewed as infinite in this respect, as. contrasted with the jjetty point of extension, which the advocates of the doctrine in question allow it to occupy in its corporeal dom- icile. The faculty of Self-consciousness affords us a knowledge of the johrenomena of our minds. It is the source of The sphere of Self- jj^^crnal experience. You will, therefore, ob- serve, that, like External Perception, it only furnishes us with focts; and that the use we make of these facts, ' — that is, what Ave find in them, what we deduce from them, — belongs to a different process of intelligence. Self-consciousness affords the materials equally to all systems of i^hilosophy ; all equally admit it, and all elaborate the materials Avhich this faculty supplies,. according to their fashion. And here I may merely notice, by the Avay, what, in treating of the Regulative Faculty, Two modes of deal- -will fall to be regularly discussed, that these ing witii the pha-nom- ^ ^^^^^ materials, may be considered in two ena given in Self-cou- • 1 x t • 1 sciousness, - viz : ei- ways. We may employ either Induction alone,^ ther by Induction or also Analysis. If we merely consider the alone, or by Indue- phj^nomena which Self-consciousucss reveals, in tion and analysis to- '^ , ggtj,gr relation to each other, — merely compare them together, and generalize the qualities Avliich they display in common, and thus arrange them into classes or groups governed by the same laws, we perform the process of Induction. By this process we obtain what is general, but not Avhat is necessary. For example, having observed that external objects presented in perception are extended, Ave generalize the notion of extension or space. "We have thus explained the possibility of a conception of 1 See above, lect. xxv. 351 et seq. — Ed. ) Lect. XXIX. METAPHYSICS. 408 space, but only of space as a general and contingent notion ; for if we hold that this notion exists in the mind only as the result of such a process, Ave must hold it to be a 'posteriori or adventitious, and, therefore, contingent. Sucli is the process of Induction, or of Siin])]e Observation. The other process, that of Analysis or Criti- cism, docs not rest satisfied with this comparison and generalization, which it, however, sup|)oses. It ])roposes not merely to find what is general in the pha3nomena, but what is necessary and universal. It, accordingly, takes mental phaenomena, and, by abstraction, throws aside all that it is able to detach, without annihilating the phoenomena altogether, — in sliort, it analyzes thought into its essen- tial or necessary, and its accidental or contingent, elements. Thus, from Obseiwation and Induction, we discover what expe- rience affords as its general result; fi'oju Analysis The spLere of Criti- ^ f^ -i.- • t i j. ^ and Criticism, we discover wliat experience sui)- cal Analysis. . . . . . poses as its necessary condition. 1 ou will notice, that the critical analysis of which I noAv speak, is limited to the objects of our internal observation; for in the phaenomena of mind alone can we b»i conscious of absolute necessity. All necessity to us ^^^ necessity is, in fact, to us subjective ; for a subjective. . , . ,, . ., , , thing is conceived impossible only as we are unable to construe it in thought. Whatever does uot violate the laws of thought, is, therefore, not to us impossible, however firmly we may believe that it A\ill not occur. For example, we hold it absolutely impossible, that a tiling can begin to be without a cause. Whv? Simplv because the mind cannot realize to itself the con- ception of absolute commencement. That a stone should ascend into the air, we firmly believe will never happen; but we fin Imn all axioms are only generalizations of experience. In this respect he 404 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIX was greatly excelled by Descartes and Leibnitz. The latter, indeed, was the philosoplier who clearly enunciated the Leibuitz —the first pnnciplc, thut the phaenomcnon of necessity, to enounce necessity in our cognitions, could not be explained on the as the criterion of ground of experience. "All the examples," he truth native to the "which confimx a general truth, how nu- mind. •' '^ _ merous soever, would not suffice to establish the universal necessity of this same truth ; for it does not follow, that what has hitherto occurred will always occur in future."^ "If Locke," he adds, "had sufficiently considered the difference between truths which are necessary or demonstrative, and those which we infer from induction alone, he would have perceived that necessary truths could only be proved from principles Avhich command our assent by their intuitive evidence ; inasmuch as our senses can inform us only of what is, not of what must necessarily be." Leibnitz, however, was not himself fully aware of the import of the principle, — at least he failed in carrying it out to its most important applications ; and though he triumphantly demonstrated, in opposition to Locke, the a ^^riori character Kant, -the first ^f many of those cognitions which Locke had ■who fully applied this t • i p • i i r> x-" criterion. derived from experience, yet he left to Kant the honor of havino; been the first who fiillv applied the critical analysis in the jihilosophy of mind. The faculty of Self-consciousness corresponds with the Reflec- tion of Locke. Now, there is an interesting ques- Has the philosophy tion concerning this faculty, — whether the phi- of Locke been mis- losophy of Lockc has been misapprehended and represented by Con- . i i ^ th i , « , . diiiac and other of misrepresented by Condillac, and other of his his French disciples? French disciplcs, as Mr. Stewart maintains; or, whether Mr. Stewart has not himself attempted to vindicate the tendency of Locke's philosophy on grounds which will not bear out his conclusions. Mr. Stewart has canvassed this point at considerable length, both in his Essays^ and in his Disser- tation on the Progress of 3Ietaphysical^ Ethical^ and Political Philosophy. In the latter, the point at issue is thus briefly stated: "The objections to which Locke's doctrine con- Stewart quoted in • ,, • • i • -i • ,^ ^. ,. ,. . - , cernmg the origin of our ideas, or, in other Vindication of Locke. ■^ _ ^ ' ' words, concerning the sources of our knowl- edge, are, in my judgment, liable, I have stated so fully in a former 1 Nouveaux Essais, Avant-propos, p. 5 (edit. 358. Theodicee (1710), i. J 2, p. 480 (Erd.), Of Raspe). — Ed. [Cf. lib. i. C. i. } 5, p. 36; lib. Opera, t- i. p. 65(Duten8). Monadologie (VH'i\ ii. c. xvii. § 1, p. 116. Letter to Burnet of p. 707 (edit. Erdmann).] Kemney (1706), Opera, t. vi. p. 274 (edit. Du- 2 Works, vol. v. part i., Essay i., p 55 e( «ef. tens). Letter to Bierling (1710), Opera, t. v. p. — Ed. Lect. XXIX. METAPHYSICS. 405 work, that I shall not touch on them here. It is quite sufficient, on the present occasion, to remark, liow very unjustly this doctrine (ira|>erfect, on the most favorable construction, as it undoubte«lly is) has been confounded with those of Gassendi, of Condillac, of Diderot, and of Home Tooke. The substance of all that is com- mon in the conclusions of these last writers, cannot be better expressed than in the words of their master, Gassendi. 'AH our knowledge,' he observes in a letter to Descartes, ' a])]ienrs plainly to derive its origin from the senses; and although you deny the maxim, 'Quicquid est intellectu prajesse debere in sensu,' yet this maxim appears, nevertheless, to be true ; since our knowledge is all ultimately obtained by an influx or incursion from things external ; which knowledge afterwards undergoes various modifications by means of analogy, composition, division, amplification, extenuation, and other similar processes, which it is unnecessary to enumerate.' This doctrine of Gassendi's coincides exactly Avith that ascribed to Locke by Diderot and by Home Tooke ; and it differs only verbally from the more concise statement of Condillac, that 'our ideas are nothing more than transformed sensations.' 'Every idea,' says the first of these writers, ' must necessarilv, when brouirht to its state of ultimate decomposition, resolve itself into a sensible representa- tion or picture ; and since everything in our understanding has been introduced there by the channel of sensation, whatever pro- ceeds out of the understanding is either chimerical, or n\ust be able, in returning by the same road, to reattach itself to its sensible archetj'pe. Hence an important rule in philosophy, — that every expression which cannot find an external and a sensible object, to which it can thus establish its affinity, is destitute of signification.' Such is the exposition given by Diderot, of what is regarde(l in France as Locke's great and cajtital discovery; and precisely to the same purpose Ave are told by Condorcot, that 'Locke was the first who proved that all our ideas are com])ounded of sensatit>ns.' If this were to be admitted as a fair account of Locke's opinion, il would follow that he has not advanced a single step beyond Gas- sendi and Ilobbcs ; both of whom have repeatedly expressed them- selves in nearly the same words with Diderot and Condorcet. But although it must be granted, in favor of their interpretation of his language, that various detachetl passages may be (pioted from his work, which seem, on a superficial view, to justify their comments; yet of what weight, it may be ask<'(l, :ire these ])assages. when compared with the stress laid by tlie author on Jit'JltfCtion^ as an original source of our ideas, alt()gether different from Scnsnfion f 'The other fountain,' says Locke, 'from which experience furnisheth 406 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIX. the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operations of our own minds within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got ; Avhich operations, wlien the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding Avith another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without; and such are Per- ception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Reasoning, Knowing, Will- ing, and all the different actings of our own minds, which, we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings ideas as distinct as we do from bodies aflTecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called Internal Sense. But as I call the other Sensation, so I call this Reflection; the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself.'^ Again, 'The understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any ideas which it does not receive from one of these two. Ex- ternal objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations.' " ^ On these observations I must remark, that they do not at all satisfy me ; and I cannot but regard Locke and Stewart's vindica- Qasseudi as exactly upon a par, and both as tion unsatisfactory. -, ■ • ^ \ -x r deriving all our knowleinion on this subject was from that commonly ascribed to him by the French and German commentators. For my own j>art, I do not thi)d<, notwithstanding some casual ex)iressions which may seem to favor tlie contrary supposition, tliat Locke Avould have hes- itated for a moment to admit, with Cudworth and Price, that the Understandittf/ is itself a source of new ideas. That it is by Jieflec- tioti. (which, according to his own definition, means merely the exercise of ihe Lliderstandiiuj on the internal phenomena), that we get our ideas of JVIemory, Lnagination, lleasoning, and of all other intellectual ])owers, Mr. Locke has again and again told us; and from this principle it is so obvious an inference, that all tlie simple ideas which are necessarily implied in our intellectual opera- tions, are ultimately to be referred to the same source, that we can- 1 See above, leet. xiii. p. 102 — Kn. tnrh Chapter nf Mr. I.nrkf'% Kssay concman^ 2 Lee on Locki', nuikes ai)parently the same Humnnr Unr/irsiamlin^. by Henry I.ee. B.D., mistake. [Sec Anti-Hkepticism: or, yoles upon Preface, p. 7; London, 1702. -■ Hd.J 408 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXIX not reasonably suppose a philosopher of Locke's sagacity to admiti* the former proposition, and to withhold his assent to the latter." ' The inference which, in the latter part of this quotation, Mr. Stewart speaks of, is not so obvious as he sup- Gassendi, though a • ,. • ^i. j. '^ . .•^■, -r •■, • , Sensationalist, alit- 1^^'^^' ^^^^"^ ^^^^ '^ ^''^^ "«* till LeibnitZ that. ted Reflection as a ^^^ character of necessity Avas enounced, and source of knowledge. clearly enounccd, as the criterion by which ta discriminate the native from the adventitious cognitions of the mind. This is, indeed, shown by the example of Gassendi himself, who is justly represented by Mr. Stewart as a Sensationalist of the purest water; but wholly misrepresented by him, as distinguished from Locke by his negation of any faculty corresponding to Locke's Reflection. So far is this from being cor- rect, — Gassendi not only allowed a foculty of Self-consciousness analogous to the Reflection of Locke, he actually held such a faculty, and even attributed to it far higher functions than did the English philosopher; nay, what is more, held it under the very name of Reflection. ^ In fact, from the French philosopher, Locke borrowed this, as he di?l the principal part of his whole philosophy ; and it is saying but little either for the patriotism or intelligence of their countrymen, that the works of Gassendi and Descartes should have been so long eclipsed in France by those of Locke, who was in truth only a follower of the one, and a mistaken refuter of the other. In respect to Gassendi, there are reasons that explain this neglect apart from any want of merit in himself; for he is a thinker fully equal to Locke in independence and vigor of intellect, and,^ with the exception of Leibnitz, he is, of all the great philosophers of modern times, the most varied and profound in learning. Now, in regard to the point at issue, so far is Gassendi from assimilating Reflection to Sense, as Locke virtu- And did not assim- ^■\ •£• 2. ^ ^ iz- i-i ... -r, „ ,. . ^^h- " not expressly, does, and for Avhich assim- ilate Retiection to . *^. '■ -^ ' ' gense. ilation he has been principally lauded by those of his followers who analyzed every mental pro- cess into Sensation, — so far, I say, is Gassendi from doing this, that he places Sense and Reflection at the opposite mental poles, making the former a mental function wholly dependent upon the bodily organism ; the latter, an energy of intellect Avholly inorganic and abstract from matter. The cognitive phaenom- 18 ivision o e ^^^^ ^^ mind Gassendi reduces to three sreneral cognitive phaenomena * efmind. classes of faculties : — 1°. Sense, 2°. Phantasy (or Imagination), and 3°. Intellect. The two former are, however, virtually one, inasmuch as Phantasy, on hi* 1 Dissertation, p. ii. f i. foot-note, Works, vol. i. p. 230. — Ed. 2 See above, lect. xiii. p 162. — Ed. I Lect. XXIX. METAPHYSICS. 400 doctrine, is only cognizant about the forms, which it receives from Sense, and is, equally with Sense, dependent on Intellect according j^ corporeal Organ. Intellect, on the contrary^ to Gassendi, has three iiii- ^ i t ^ -i ^t ^ '^ c . ,. \ T , he holds, is not so dependent, and tJiat its lunc- fuiictioiis, — 1. Intel- _ ^ _ ' _ lectuai Apiireiiension. tions are, therefore, of a kind superior to those of an organic faculty. These functions or facul- ties of Intellect he reduces to three. "The first," he says (audi litei-ally translate his words in order that I may show you how flagrantly he has been misrepresented), "is Intellectual Apprehen' sion, — that is, the apprehension of things which are beyond the reach of Sense, and which, consequently, leaving no trace in the brain, are also beyond the ken of Imagin.ation. Such, especially, is spiritual or incor]>oreal nature, as, for example, the Deity. For although in speaking of God, Ave say that He is incorporeal, yet in attempting to realize Ilim to Phantasy, we only imagine something with the attributes of body. It must not, however, be supposed tliat this is all ; for, besides and above the corporeal form Avhich Ave thus imagine, there is, at the same time, another conception, whick that form contributes, as it Avere, to veil and obscure. This con- ception is not confined to the narroAV limits of Phantasy (prteter PhantasiiD cancellos est) ; it is proper to Intellect ; and, therefore^ such an apprehension ought not to be called an imagination, but an intelligence or intellection (non imagination sed iatdligentia vel intellectio, dici oportet)."^ In his doctrine of Intellect, Gassendi takes, indeed, far higher ground than Locke ; and it is a total rever- sal of his doctrine, when it is stated, that he allowed to the mind no different, no higher, apjjrehensions than the derivative images of sense. He says, indeed, and he says truly, that if Ave attempt to figure out the Deity in imagination, Ave cannot dejnct Him in that faculty, except under sensible turms — as, for example, under the form of a venerable old man. IJut does he not condemn this attemi)t as derogatory ; and does he not allow us an intellectual conception of the Divinity, superior to the grovelling conditions of Phantasy? The Cartesians, hoAvever, were too Avell disposed to overlook the limits inider Avhicli Gassendi liad advanced his doc- trine, — that the senses are the source of all our knowledge ; and Mr. Stewart has adopted, from the Port Royal Logic, a statement of Gassendi's opinion, Avhich is, to say the least of it, partial and incomplete. The second function Avhich Gassendi assigns to Intellect, is Re- flection, and the third is Reasoning. It is with the former of these 1 Pkyska, sect, iii , Jlemb. Post., lib. ix. c. 3. 0/>\.— Kd o2 410 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XXIX that we are at present concernetl, Mr. Stewart, you have seen, distinguislies tlie philosophy of Locke from that 2. Reflection. ^^ ^ns predecessor in this, — that the former 3 J{easoiiing. , -^ , introduced Reflection or Self-consciousness as a source of knowledge, which was overlooked or disallowed by the latter. Mr. Stewart is thus wrong in the fact of Gassendi's rejection of any source of knowledge of the name and nature of Locke's Reflection. So far is this from being the case, that Gas- sendi attributes far more to this faculty than Locke ; for he not only makes it an original source of knowledge, but founds upon the nature of its action a proof of the immateriality of mind. "To the second operation," he says, " belongs the Attention or Reflection of tlie intellect uj^on its proper acts, — an oj^eration by which it understands that it understands, and thinks that it thinks (qua se intelligere intelligit, cogitatve se cogitare). " We have formerly," he adds, ''shown that it is above the ])o\ver of Phantasy to im- agine that it imagines, because, being of a corporeal nature, it cannot act upon itself; in fact, it is as absurd to say that I imagine myself to imagine, as that I see myself to see." He then goes on to show, that the knowledge we obtain of all our mental operations and affections, is by this reflection of Intellect; that it is neces- sarily of an inorganic or purely sjnritual character; that it is peculiar to man, and distinguishes him from the brutes ; and that it aids us in the recognition of disembodied substances, in the confession of a God, and in according to Him the veneration which we owe Him. From Avhat I have now said, you will see, that the mere admis- sion of a faculty of Self-consciousness, as a source The mere admission of knowledge, is of no import in determining of a faculty of Self. ^]^g rational, — the anti-sensual, character of a consciousness, of no , ., , ^ , , ... , import in determining philosophy ; and that cvcu thosc philosophcrs the anti-sensii.ai char- wlio discriminated it the most strongly from acter of a philosophy. Sense, might still maintain that experience is not only the occasion, but the source, of all our knowledge. Such philosophers were Gassendi and Locke. On this faculty I do not think it necessary. to dwell longer; and, in our next Lecture, I shall proceed to consider the Conservative Faculty. — Memory, properly so called. LECTURE XXX. THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. — MEMORY PROPER. 1 COMMENCED and concluded, in my last Lecture, the considei-a tion of the second source of knowledge, — tl/ Elementary phae- faculty of Self-Consciousncss Or Internal Per Domc-na may be dis- ccinion. Tlirough the powcrs of External and tinct, while they de- ' . , , t pend on each other Internal Ferception we are enabled to acqun-e for their realization. infornintioii, — experience: but this acquisition is not of itself independent and complete; it supposes that we are also able to retain the knowledge acquire • phers; nor in ordi- analysis of philosoplicrs ; and why their distinc- uary language. tiou is not precisely marked in ordinary lan- guage. In ordinary language we have indeed words which, without excluding the other faculties, denote one of these more emphatically. Thus in the term r inary use o e Memory, the Conservative Facultv, — the phse- terms Memory and ^ . . ' ^ _ Recollection. nomenou of Retention is the central notion,, with wdiich, however, those of Reproduction and Representation are associated. In tlie term Recollection, again,, the phaenomenon of Reproduction is the principal notion, accom- panied, however, by those of Retention and Representation, as its. subordinates. This being the case, it is evident what must be our course in regard to the employment of common language. We must either abandon it altogether, or take the term that more proxi- mately expresses our analysis, and, by definition, limit and specify its signification. Thus, in the Conservative Faculty, we may either content ourselves with the scientific terms of Conservation and Retention alone, or we may moreover use as a synonym the vulgar term Memory, determining its apjjlication, in our mouths, by a pre- liminary definition. And that the word Memory principally and propei-ly denotes the power the mind possesses Memory properly ^^ retaining hold of the knowledge it has ac- denotes the power of . . ^ ^ Retention. quired, IS generally admitted by philologers, and is not denied by ]>hilosophers. Of the latter,, some have expressly avowed this. Of these I shall quote to you only two or three, which hap])cn to occur the first to my recollec- tion. Plato considers Memory simply as the Ac now e ge y f^xculty of Conservation (17 jxvrj^y] o-wrr^pta aiV^?;- Aristotie. (tcws).^ Aristotle distinguishes Memory {ixvr)ftr]) as the fiiculty of Conservation from Reminis- cence (Sivafxvr](Ti<:), the faculty of Reproduction.^ St. Augustin, who is not only the most illustrious of the Christian St. Augustin. •' ^ T 1 . 1 fathers, but one of the profoundest thmkers of antiquity, finely contrasts Memory with Recollection or Reminis- cence, in one of the most eloquent and philosophical chapters of his 1 Philebus, [p. 34. — Ed.] Cf Conimbricenses, In De Mem. et Rem. a 2 De Memoria et Reminiscentia [c. 2, § 2.5 vii. p. 10. — Ed.] I Lect. XXX. METAPHYSICS. ' 418 Confessions:^ — "Hjec omnia recipit recolenda, cum opus est, et retractanda grandis memoriae recessus. Et nescio qui secreti atque ineffabiles sinus ejus; quai omnia suis quieque foribus intrant ad. earn, et reponuntur in ea. Nee ipsa tamen intrant, sed rerum sensa- rum imagines illic prajsto sunt, cogitation! reminiscenti eas." The same distinction is likewise precisely taken by . u.ius aesar ca i- ^^^ ^^ ^j^^ acutest of modern i)hilosophers, the elder Scaliger.- '■'• Jfemon'ani voce huiusce cost- nitionis conservationem. Heminiscentiam dico, repetitionem disci- plinae, quae e memoria delapsa fuerat." This is from his commentary on Aristotle's History of Animals ; the following is from his De Subtilitate :^ — " Quid Memoria ? Yis animae communis ad retinen- dum tam rerum imagines, i. e. phantasmata, quam notiones univer- sales ; easque, vel simplices, vel com|)lexas. Quid liecordatio? Opera intellectus, species recolentis. Quid JReminiscentia? Dis- quisitio tectarum specierum ; amotio importunarum, digestio obtur- batarum.'' The father suggests the son, and the following occurs in the Secunda tScaligerana^ which is one of the two collections we have of the table-talk of Joseph Scaliger. Joseph Scaliger. i • i t 4- ^ \ \\ ihe one irom which 1 quote Avas made by the brothers A'^assan, Avhom the Dictator of Letters, from friendship to tlieir learned uncles (the Messrs, Pithou), had received into his house, when pursuing tlieir studies in the University of Leyden ; and Secunda Scaligerana is made up of the notes they had taken of the conversations he liad with them, and others in their pres- ence. Scaliger, speaking of liimself, is made to say: "I have not a good memory, but a good reminiscence ; ])roper names do not easily recur to me, but when I think on them I find theni out."* It is sufficient for our ])urji()se that the distinction is here taken l)etween the Retentive l*ower, — Memory, and the lie))roductive Power, — Reminiscence. Scaliger's memory could hardly be called bad, tliough his reminiscence might be better; and these elements in conjunction go to constitute a good memory, in the com])rehensive sense of the exi)ression. I sav the retentive facultv of that man is surely not to be desjtised, who was able to commit to memory Homer in twenty-one days, and the whole (Ti-oek poets in three months,'' and who, taking him all in all, Avas the most learned man the world has ever seen. I might adduce many other autliorities to J Lib X. C S. — Ed. •S .See lU'in.>'ius, In Josrphi Srnligeri Ohitum : ' [Aristotf.lis Historia tie Animalihus, Julio Funtbris Oralio (1C09), j) 15 His word.i arc : Ca.tart Scaligero Interprete. Tolosie 1G19, p. — " Uuo et vi^inti diobus Homeruni, reliquos 80.] iiitrii i|unrtiini menaiim ))(X'fa«, crtiTOn aiitem " [Exercit. cccvil 28 ] intra biciiiiium scriptorca pcniisccret " See * Tom. ii. p 552. — Ed. beJow lect xxxi. p 41.3. — Kd. 414 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXX the same effect; but tliis, I think, is sufficient to warrant me in using the term Memory exclusively to denote the faculty possessed by the mind of preserving what has once been present to conscious- ness, so that it may again be recalled and represented in conscious- ness.^ So much foi- the verbal consideration. By Memory or Retention, you will see, is only meant the condi- Memoi7,-what. ^^^" ^^ Reproduction ; and it is, therefore, evi- dent that it is only by an extension of the term that it can be called a faculty, that is, an active power. It is more a passive resistance than an energy, and ought, therefore, perhaps to receive rather the appellation of a capacity. ^ But the nature of this capacity or faculty we must now proceed to consider. In the first place, then, I presume that the fact of retention is ^^ , , admitted. We are conscious of certain coo-ni- The fact of retention ... ° admitted. \\o\\% as acquired, and we are conscious of these cognitions as resuscitated. That, in the interval, when out of consciousness, these cognitions do continue to subsist in the mind, is certainly an hypothesis, because whatever is out of consciousness can only be assumed ; but it is an hypothesis which we are not only warranted, but necessitated, by the i)h8enomena, to establish. I recollect, indeed, that one philosopher has proposed another hypothesis. Avicenna, the celebrated The hypothesis of at,- i-i i -i ^ • • -, • Avicenna regarding -Arabian philosopher and physician, denies to the retention. human mind the conservation of its acquired knowledge ; and he explains the process of recol- lection by an irradiation of divine light, through which the recov- ered cognition is infused into the intellect. ^ Assumino-, however, that the knowledge we have acquired is retained in and by the human mind, we must, of course, attribute to the mind a 2)ower of thus retaining it. The fact of memory is thus established. But if it cannot be denied, that the knowledge we have acquired by Perception and Self-consciousness, does actu- Retention admits of ,, . , explanation. '"^^V Continue, though out of consciousness, to endure ; can we, in the second place, find any ground on which to explain the possibility of this endurance ? I think we can, and shall adduce such an explanation, founded on the general analogies of our mental nature. Before, however, com- 1 Suabedissen makes Memory equivalent to 2 See Suabedissen, as above. Retention; see his Grundzilge cler Lehre von dem Mfnschen, p 107. So Fries, Schmid. [Cf. 3 See Conimbricensfes, In De Memoria et Leibnitz, Nout- Ess., lib i c. i. § 5; lib ii. c. Reminiseenlia, [c. i. p. 2, edit. 1631 Cf. the xix § 1- Conimbricenses, In De Mem. et Rem. same, In De Anima, lib. iii. c. v. q. ii art. ii. p. c i. p 2] [Fracastorius, Z)e /ntettec«ione, 1. i., 430. — Ed.] Opera, f. 126 (ed. 1584). —Ed./ Lect. XXX. METAPHYSICS. 415 mencing this, I may notice some of the similitudes which have been suggested by pliilosophers, as iUustrative Similitudes suggested ^^f tj^jg faculty. It lias been compared to a store- In illustration of the . ^. n • 7 faculty of Retention. house, — Ciccro calls it "■ thescmrus omnium re- Cicero. Tum^'' ^ — provided with cells or jjigeon-holes^ in which its furniture is laid \\\> and arranged.* It has been likened to a tablet on which characters were written or impressed.^ But of all these sensible resemblances, none is so ingenious as that of Gassendi* to the folds in a Gassendi. . ^ 1 1 i i t n piece 01 paper or cloth ; though 1 do not recol- lect to have seen it ever noticed. A sheet of paper, or cloth, is capable of receiving innumerable folds, and the folds in whicli it has been oftenest laid, it takes afterwards of itself " Concipi charta valeat plicarum innumerabiliuui, inconfusarunique, et juxta suos ordines, suasque series rej)Ctendarum capax. Silicet ubi unam seriem subtilissimarum induxerimus, superinducere licet alias, qua& primam quidem refringant transversuin, et in oranem obliquitatem ; sed ita tamen, ut dum iiovas, plicae, plicarumque series superindu- cuntur priores omnes non modo remaneant, verum etiam possint facili negotio excitari, redire, apparere, quatenus una jjlica arrepta, caeterae, quae in eadem serie quadam quasi sponte sequuntur." All these resemblances, if intended as more than metaphors, are unphilosophical. AVe do not even obtain any These resemblances i„siolit into the nature of Memory from any of of use simply as meta- " • ^ ^ 1 i-,, -i phors. ' t''^' physiological Jiypotheses which have been stated ; indeed all of them are too contemptible even for serious criticism. " The mind alFords us, however, in itself, the very explanation which we vainly seek in any collateral influ- ences. The phenomenon of retention is, indeed, The phacnomenon of ^^ natural, ou tlio grouud of the self-energy of retention naturally • 1 1 ^ 1 t arises from the self- """•^' ^'''"'^ ''■*' ''•'''^ "^ "*^'^*^ ^'^ SUppOSe any energy of mind. sjiecial lacult}' fur iiu'iiiory ; the conservation of tlie action of the iniud beini; involved in the very conception of its i)ower of self-activity. " Let us consider how knowledge is acquired by the mind. Knowledge is not accpiired by a mere passive affection, but througli the exertion of spontaneous activity on the part of the knowing subject; for though this activity bo not exerted without some exter- nal excitation, still this excitation is only the occasion on which 1 Dt Oralore, i.5. — Ed. 4 Physica, sect iii., membr. post., lib. vili. 2 Cf Plato, T/ieatetus, p. 197. — Ed. c. 3. Opera, Lugd. IGoS, vol. ii p. 400. — Eo. 3 Cf Plato, TUKTittus, p. I'Jl. Arist., De [Cf Descartes, CEuvret, t. ix. p. 107 (ed. Anima,\\\ 4. Boethius, ZJe ConioJ. P/ii7., lib. Cousin)] [Hi. UUaxrv, PsychologU W Aristotlt, V. metr. 4. — Ed. Pref p. 18 et seq. — Ed.] 416 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXX. the mind develops its self-energy. But this energy being once determined, it is natural that it should persist, This specially shown. until again annihilated by other causes. This Knowledge aciuired ^,^^^^^^ .^ ^^^^ ^^ ^j^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^.^^-^ ^.g^elv by the spontaneous ac- ^ _ _ ' ^ _ _ . • tivitv of mind. passive iu the impression it receives; for it is a universal law of nature, that everv effect endures as long as it is not modified or opposed by any other effect. But the mental activity, the act of knowledge, of which I now speak, is more than this ; it is an energy of the self-active power of a subject one and indivisible : consequently, a part of the ego must be detached or annihilated, if a cognition once existent be again extinguished. Hence it is, that the problem most difficult of The problem most solution is not, how a mental activity endures, difficult of solution is ^^^^ j^^^^. -^ g^.gj. vanishes. For as we must here not, how a mental . . . . activity endures, but maintam not merely the possible continuance of how it ever vanishes. certain energies, but the impossibility of the non-continuance of any one, we, consequently, •stand in apparent contradiction to what experience shows us ; show- in*' us, as it does, our internal activities in a ceaseless vicissitude of manifestation and disappearance. This apparent contradiction, therefore, demands solution. If it be impossible, that an energy of mind which has once been should be abolished, M'ithout a laceration of the vital unity of the mind as a subject one and indivisible; — on this supposition, the question arises, How can the facts of our self- consciousness be brought to harmonize with this statement, seeing that consciousness proves to us, that cognitions once clear and vivid are forgotten ; that feelings, wishes, desires, in a word, every act or modification, of which we are at one time aware, are at another vanished ; and that our internal existence seems daily to assume a new and different aspect. " The solution of this problem is to be sought for. in the theory of obscure or latent modifications, [that is, men- The difficulty re- tal activities, real but beyond the sphere of con- moved by the princi- sciousucss, Avhich I formerly explained.] ^ The pie of latent mortitica- r' • ^ i • i? .^i, ■ *. ™ , ^. disa])pearance of internal energies from the View tions. The obscuration 11 o of a mental activity of internal perception, does not warrant the con- arises from the weak- clusion, that they no longer exist ; for we are «ning of the degree in ^^^ alwavs conscious of all the mental energies which it affects self- • i t n i /-^ i consciousness. whose existence cannot be disallowed. Only the more vivid changes sufficiently affect our consciousness to become objects of its apprehension: we, conse- quently, are only conscious of the more prominent series of changes 1 See above, lect. xviii. p. 235 et seq. — Ed. I Lect. XXX. METAPHYSICS. 41T in our internal state ; the others remain for the most part latent. Thus we take note of our memory only in its influence on our con- sciousness ; and, in general, do not consider that the immense pro- portion of our intellcctunl possessions consists of our delitescent cognitions. ! All the cognitions which we possess, or have possessed, still remain to us, — the whole complement of all our knowledge still lies in our memory; but as new acquisitions are continually pressing in \ipon the old, and continually taking place along with them among tlie modifications of the ego, the old cognitions, un- less from time to time refreshed and brought forward, are driven back, and become gradually fainter and more obscure. This obscur- ation is not, however, to be conceived as an obliteration, or as a total annihilation. The obscuration, the delitescence of mental activities, is explained by the weakening of the degree in Avhich they affect our self-consciousness or internal sense. An activity becomes obscure, because it is no longer able adequately to affect this. To explain, therefore, the disappearance of our mental activ itics, it is only requisite to explain their weakening or enfeeble ment, — which may be attempted in the following way : — Every mental activity belongs to the one vital activity The distribution of ^^ ^^^-^^j j^^ general ; it is, therefore, indivisiblv mental force explains . , . i • i i /- ' the weakening of our bound up With it, and can neither be torn from activities, and the nor aboHshcd in, it. But the mind is only capa- phanomenon of For- ^Ae, at any One moment, of exerting a certaiw ^^ "^^ ■ quantity or degree of force. This quantity must^ therefore, be divided among the different activities, so that each has only a part ; and the sum of force belonging to all the several activities taken together, is equal to the quantity or degree of forc^ belonging to the vital activity of mind in general. Thus, in propor- tion to the greater number of activities in the mind, the less will be the proportion of force which will accrue to each ; tlie feebler, therefore, each will be, and the fainter the vivacity with wliich it can affect self-consciousness. This weakening of vivacity can, in con sequence of the indefinite increase in the number of om- mental activities, caused by the ceaseless excitation of the mind to hcmt knowledge, be carried to an indefinite tenuity, without the activi- ties, therefore, ceasing altogether to be. Thus it is quite natural, that the great pro]>ortion of our mental cognitions shouKl have waxed too feeble to affect our internal perception with the com- I">etent intensity; it is quite natural that they should have become obscure or delitescent. In these circumstances it is to be supposed, that every new cognition,' every newly-excited activity, should be in the greatest vivacity, and should draw to itself the greatest amount 53 418 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXX of force : this force will, in the same proportion, be withdrawn from the other earlier cognitions ; and it is they, consequently, which must undergo the fate of obscuration. Thus is explained the phaenome- non of Forgetfulness or Oblivion. And here, by the way, it should perhaps be noticed, that forgetfulness is not to be limited merely to our cognitions : it applies equally to the feelings and desires. " The same principle illustrates, and is illustrated by, the phte- nomenon of Distraction and Attention. ^ If a And the phaenome- ^^ number of activities are equally excited nou of Distraction and it n i n Attention. ''^ oncc, the disposable amount of mental foi'ce is equally distributed among this multitude, so that each activity only attains a low degree of vivacity ; the state of mind which results from this is Distraction, Attention is the state the converse of this ; that is, the state in Avhich the vital activity of mind is, voluntarily or involuntarily, concentrated, say, in a single activity ; in consequence of which concentration this activity waxes stronger, and, therefore, clearer. | On this theory, the proposition with which I started, — that all mental activities,, all acts of knowledge, which have been once excited, persist, — becomes intelligible ; we never wholly lose them, but they become obscure, j This obscuration can be conceived in every infinite de- gree, between incipient latescence and irrecoverable latency. The obscure cognition may exist simply out of consciousness, so that it can be recalled by a common act of reminiscence. Again, it may be impossible to recover it by an act of voluntary recollection ; but some association may revivify it enough to make it flash after a long oblivion into consciousness. Further, it may be obscured so far that it can only be resuscitated by some morbid affection of the system ; or, finally, it may be absolutely lost for us in this life, and destined only for our reminiscence in the life to come. " That this doctrine admits of an immediate application to the faculty of Retention, or Memory Proper, has Two observations re- j^^g^^ already signified. And in further explana- garding Jlemory, that .. f» i • /> t t it i 4. ^f *v.„ tion ot tins faculty, 1 would annex tAvo observa- arise out of the pre- •' ' ceding theory. tioMS, which arise out of the preceding theory. 1. The law of reten- q^i,e first is, that retention, that memory, does ion ex en s over a ^^^^^ bclouff alone to the cofjnitivc faculties, but the phaenomena of ^ ^ _ mind alike. ^''^^ tlic same law extends, in like manner, over all the three primary classes of the mental phae- nomena. It is not ideas, notions, cognitions only, but feelings and conations, which are held fast, and which can, therefore, be again awakened.' This fact of the conservation- of our practical modifica- 1 [Cf. Tetens, Versuche iiber die menschliche Nntur, i. p. 56.1 ^ Lect. XXX. METAPHYSICS. 419 tions is not indeed denied ; but psychologists usually so represent the matter, as if, when feelings or conations arc retained in the mind, that this takes place only through the medium of the memory; meaning hy tliis, that v,o must, first of all, have liad notions of these affections, which notions being preserved, they, when recalled to minil, do again awaken the modification they rei)resent. From the tlicory I have detailed to you, it must be seen that there is no need of this intermediation of notions, but that \vc immediatelv retain fceling.s, volitions, and desires, no less than notions and cu• • •. -, ^ mi ory-viz. Retention ^^^^^^ ^^^ qualities requisite,— 1,° The capacity and Reproduction. of Retention, and 2°, The faculty of Reproduc- tion. But the former quality appears to be that by which these marvellous contrasts are principally determined. I should only fatigue you, were I to enumerate the prodigious feats of retention, which are proved to have been actually per- formed. Of these, I shall only select the one which, u])on the ■whole, appears to me the most extraordinary, both by reason of its own singularity, and because I am able to afford it some testi- mony, in confirmation of the veracity of the illustrious scholar by whom it is narrated, and which has most groundlessly been sus- pected by his learned editor. The story I am about to detail to you is told by Muretus, in the first chapter of the third book of his incomparable work, the Varice X,ectio7ies? 1 H. Schmid, Versuch tiner Metaphysik, [p. lologers and critics of modern times; and 235,236. — Ed.] from himself to Cicero, a period of sixteen 2 f^pera, edit. Ruhnken., torn. ii. p. 55. — Ed. centuries, there is to be found no one who Muretus ie one of the most distinguished phi- equalled him in Latin eloquence. Besides Lect. XXX. METAPHYSICS. 421 After noticing tlie boast of Hippias, in Plato, that lie could repeat, upon liearing once, to the amount of live The remarkable case hundred Avords, he obscrves that this was noth- of retention narrated . i • i i ,. . b Muretus ^"o ^^ Compared with the power of retention possessed by Seneca the rhetorician'. In his Declamations, Seneca, complaining of the inroads of old age ui>on his faculties of mind and body, mentions, in regard to the tenacity of his now failing memory, that he had been able to repeat two thousand names read to him, in the order in which they had been spoken ; and that, on one occasion, when at his studies, two hun- dred unconnected verses having been pronounced by the different pupils of his preceptor, he repeated them in a reversed order, that is, proceeded from the last to the first uttered. After quoting the passage from Seneca, of which I have given you the substance, Muretus remarks, that this statement had always ajjpeared to him marvellous, and almost incredible, until he hiniself had been wit- ness of a fact to which he never could otherwise have 'afforded credit. The sum of this statement is, that at Padua there dwelt, in his neighborhood, a young man, a Corsican by birth, and of a good family in that island, who had come thither for the cultiva- tion of civil law, in which lie was a diligent and distinguished student. He was a fi-equent visitor at the house and gardens of Muretus, who, having heard that he possessed a remarkable art, or faculty of memory, took occasion, though incredulous in regard to reports, of requesting from him a specimen of his power. lie at once agreed; and having adjourned witli a considerable party of distinguished auditors into a saloon, Muretus began to dictate words, Latin, Greek, barbarous, significant and non-significant, dis- joined and connected, until he wearied himself, the young man who wrote them down, and the audience who were ])resent; — "we were all," he says, " marvellously tired." The Corsican alone was the one of the Avhole company alert and fresh, and coiitiiuially desired Muretus for more words ; who declared he would be more than satisfied, if he could repeat the half of what had been taken down, and at leiiijrth he ceased. The voun-i; man, witli his gaze fixed upon the ground, stood silent for a brief season, and then, says Muretus, " vidi facinus mirificissimum. Having liegun to speak, he absolutely repeated the whole wonls, in the same order in which they had been delivered, without the slightest hesitation ; numerous editions of hia several treatises, his course of (uiblication, by Professor Frotschcr works have been republislied in a collected of Ix'ipzijr, was Itiilinkenius, perhaps the form six several tinus: luul the editor of the greatest scholar of the eighteenth ceuturj . edition 'before the one at present [lfc3"] in the « 422 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XXX. then, commencing from the last, he repeated them backwards till he came to the first. Then again, so that he spoke the first, the third, the fifth, and so on ; did this in any order that was asked, and all without the smallest error. Having subsequently become familiarly acquainted with him, I have had other and frequent experience of his power. He assured me (and he had nothing of the boaster in him) that he could recite, in the manner I have mentioned, to the amount of thirty-six thousand words. And what is more wonderful, they all so adhered to the mind that, after a year's interval, he could repeat them without trouble. I know, from having tried him, he could do so after a considerable time (post multos dies). Nor was this all. Franciscus Molinus, a patrician of Venice, was resident with me, a young man ardently devoted to literature, who, as he had but a wretched memory, besought the Corsican to instruct him in the art. The hint of his desire was enough, and a daily course of instruction com- menced, and with such success that the pupil could, in about a week or ten days, easily repeat to the extent of five hundred words or more in any order that was prescribed." " This," adds Muretus, " I should hardly venture to record, fearing the suspicion of falsehood, had not the matter been very recent (for a year has not elapsed), and had I not as fellow-witnesses, Nicolaus the son of Petrus Lippomanus, Lazarus the son of Francis Mocenicus, Joannes the son of Nicolaus Malipetrus, George the son of Lau- rence Contarenus — all Venetian nobles, worthy and distinguished young men, besides other innumerable witnesses. The Corsican stated that he received the art from a Frenchman, who was his domestic tutor." Muretus terminates the narrative by alleging sundry examples of a similar fiiculty, possessed in antiquity by Cyrus, Simonides, and Apollonius Tyana?us. Now, on this history, Ruhnkenius has the following note, in reference to the silence of Muretus in regard Ruhnkenius unduly ^^ ^^^ j^.^j^^g ^^f ^^^ Corsican : " Ego uomcn skeptical in regard to , . . . , ... this case hommis tam mirabilis, citius quam patnam requisiissem. Id(pie pertinobat ad fidem nar- rationi faciendam." This skepticism is, I think, out of place. It would, perhaps, have been Avarranted, had Muretus not done far more than was necessary to establish the authenticity of the story ; and, after the testimonies to whom he appeals, the omission of the Corsican's name is a matter of little import. But I am surprised that one confirmatory circumstance has escaped so learned a scholar as Ruhnkenius, seeing that it occurs in the works of a man with whose writings no one was more familiar. Muretus and Paulus Lect. XXX. METAPHYSICS. 42? Manutius were correspondents, and Manutius, yon must know, was a Venetian. Now, in the letters of Manutius to Muretus, at the date of the occurrence in question, there is frequent mention madi- of Molino, in wliom Manutius seems to have felt much interest ; and, on one occasion, there is an allusion (which I cannot at the moment recover so as to give you the precise expressions) to Molino's cultivation of the Art of Memory, and to his instructor.' This, if it were wanted, corroborates the narrative of INIuretus whose trustworthiness, I admit, was not quite as transcendent as his genius.- 1 See Patili Mantitii Epi.itnlfp, vol. i. 1. iii. ep. xiii. p. 154 (edit. Knuisc, 1720): ••Molino, jiaruin abest, quiu velifnienter, iiivideam; quid 111? arttm Memorm' teueiiti. Veriimta- men inipedit amor, a quo abessa solet invidia : etiam ea spes, quod illc, quo t'uiii bono nlieuus homo impcrtivit, civi .suo, lioniini amantis- simo, certe numquam dene^abit." Cf. vol. iii. Notce ad Epistolas. p. 1138. — Ed. 2 " As Sophocles says that memory is the queen of tliinf;.s, and because tlie nurse of poetry herself is a daufjhter of JIneniosyiie, I shall mention here another once world- renowned Corsican of Calvi — Giulio Guidi, in the year 1581, the wonder of I'adua, on account of his unfortunate memory. He could repeat thirty-six thousand names after ouce hearing them. I'eople called him Guidi riellagranmejnoria. But he produced nothing; his memory had killed all his creative faculty. I'ico von Mirandola, who lived before him. produced ; but he died young. It is with the precious gift of memory, as with all other gifts — they are a curse of the gods when they give too much." — Gregorovius, Wanderings ir. Corsica, vol. ii. book vi. chap. \i. p. .34 (Con.stable's edition). [A case similar to that narrated by Muretus is gi.en by Joseph Scal- iger in the Seniiida Scaligerana, v. itx^moirt, t. ii. p. 450, 451, edit. 1740. — Ed .j LECTURE XXXI. THE REPRODUCTIVE FACULTY. — LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. In my last 1-ecture, I entered on the consideration of that faculty of mind by which we keep possession of the *^'^''^' " ' knowledge acquired by the two faculties of External Perception, and Self-consciousness ; and I endeavored ta explain to you a theory of the manner in which the fact of reten- tion may be accounted for^ in conformity to the nature of mind,, considered as a self-active and indivisible subject. At the conclu- sion of the Lecture, I gave you, instar omiiium, one memorable example of the prodigious differences which exist between mind and mind in the capacity of retention. Before passing from the faculty of Memory, considered simply as the Two opposite doc- power of Conservation, I may notice two oppo- trines maintained in gi^e doctrines, that have been maintained, in regard to the relations ^,^ ^^^.^ ^^ ^j^^ relation of this faculty to the of Memory to the _° _ •' . higher powers of higher powcrs of mind. One of these doctrines mind. holds, that a great development of memory is- incompatible with a high degree of intelligence y the other, that a high degree of intelligence supposes such a devel- opment of memory as its condition. The former of these opinions is one very extensively prevalent,. not only amons; philosophers, but among man- 1. That a great . . , . "^ i i A i z> .• power of memory is kmd m general, and the words — ^ea«^ me- incompatibie with a moHa, expectcintes judicium — have been ap- high degree of inteiii- p|ig^^ ^q express the supposed incompatibility ^^^^^' of great memory and sound judgment.^ There seems, however, no valid ground for this belief. If an extraor- dinary power of retention is frequently not accompanied with a corresponding power of intelligence, it is a natural, but not a very logical procedure, to jumj) to the conclusion, that a great memory 1 [Niethammer, Der Streit des Philanthropin- Erfahrung (beati memoria exspectant judi- ismus und Humanismus, p. 294.] [Ausserdem ciiim), dass vorherrscheiide Geddchtniss/ertiff- gey es eine selbst Sprichwortlich gewordene keit der Uriheilshraft Ahhruch tliue. — Ed.] / Lect. XXXI. METAPHYSICS. 425 is inconsistent with a sound judgment. The opinion is refuted by the slightest induction ; for we immediately This opinion refuted j\^^^\^ that many of the individuals who towered I 1^*^,* • '"'''""P*'* above their fellows in intellectual superioiitv, of high intelligence ... and great memory. Avcre almost equally distinguished for the capac ity of their memory. I recently quoted to you a passage from the Scal'ujerana^ in which Joseph Scaliger is made to say that he had not a good memory, but a Joseph Scaliger. / . . ^ ^ ■ t . i n good remmiscence; and he immediately adds^ "never, or rarely, aie judgment and a great memory found in con- junction." Of this opinion Scaliger himself affords the most illus- trious refutation. During his lifetime, he was hailed as the Dic- tator of the llepulthc of Letters, and posterity has ratified the decision of his contemporaries, in crowning him as the prince of philologers and critics. But to elevate a man to such an emiiience,. it is evident, that the most consummate genius and ability were con i Casaubon other Witnesses, mionu us; and Casaubon was. a scholar second only to Scaliger himself in erudition. " Nihil est quod discere quisquam vellet, quod ille (Scaliger) docere noii posset : Nihil legerat (quid :uiteiii ille non legerat?), quod non statim meminisset; nihil tam ol)scurum aut abolitum in uUo vetere scriptore Graeco, Latino, vel Ilebraeo, de quo interrogatus non statim responderet. Histoi'ias omnium populorum^ omnium letatum, successiones imperiorum, res ecclesiffi, veteris in numerato habebat : animalium, })Luitarum, metalloruin, omniumque rerum naturalium, projn'ietates, differentias, et appellationes, qua veteres, qua recentes, tenebat accurate. Locorum situs, provinci- arum fines et varias pro temporibus illarum divisiones ad unguem callebat ; nullam disciplinarum, scientiarumve gravioruni reliquerat intactam ; linguas tam multas tam exacte sciebat, ut vol si hoc unum per totum vitaj spatium egisset digna res miraculo potuerit videri." For intellectual power of the highest order, none were distin- guished above Grotius and Pascal; and Grotius* Grotius. ra.scul .^^^^j i>.,scal ■ forixot nothiiiiX thev had ever read Leibnitz. Kuler. ' . ' -, -t^ \ • or thought. Lcibnit/,* ami Kuler' were not less celebrated for their intelliLrence than lor ihcir ineinurv, .ind both o^ 1 \?rffnt\n in Opuxaila Jo.t. Jiisti Scnligfri.] 4 Fontenellc, Eloge ilt M. Leibnitz —Leib Op " Grolii M/mes Vmtlirnri [\727). Jinrs ]io.of. p. p XX. (edit Diiten.s). — El>. 585. — Ei>. •'' [!?iniiilr, Vrrxuch eintr Systrtnnlifrhfti Be 3 Penicfs, I'rel' (ed. Reuouard). -- Ku. hnmUung ilir tmpirisrhen Pji/c'ioi, i. 356.] 54 426 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXL could repeat the whole of the ^neid. Donellus^ knew the Corpus Juris by heart, and yet he was one of the pro- Donellus. foundest and most original speculators in juris- Muratori. 2^^*"<^^^''*^'C- Muratori," though not a genius of the A^ery liighest order, was stilZ a man of great ability and judgment; and so powerful was his retention, that in making quotations, he had only to read his passages, put the books „ ^ in their idace, and then to write out from mem- Ben Jonson. ory the words. Ben Jonson'' tells us that he could repeat all he had ever written, and whole books that he had read. Themistocles^ could call by their names emis oc es ^j^^ twenty thousand citizens of Athens ; Cyrus ^ Cyrus, _ * ' ^ Hortensius. ^^ reported to have known the name of every soldier in his army. Hortensius, after Cicero, the greatest orator of Rome, after sitting a whole day at a public sale, correctly enunciated from memory all the things sold, their prices, and the names of the purchasers.*' Nie- Niebulir. i i 7 i i • • f. t-» buhr,^ the historian of Rome, Avas not less dis- tinguished for his memory than for his acuteness. In his youtli he was employed in one of the public offices of Denmark ; part of a book of accounts having been destroyed, ijirJames Mackintosh. t • r> • • c • he restored it from his recollection. Sir James Mackintosh was, likewise, remarkable for his j^ower of memory. An instance I can gi^^e vou wliich I Avitnessed mvself In a conversa- tion I had with him, Ave happened to touch upon an author whom I mentioned in my last Lecture, — ]Muretus ; and Sir James recited from his oration in praise of the massacre of St. BartholomcAV some considcral)le passages. Mr. Dugald SteAA\ait, and uga ewa . ^^^ ^.^^^^ j^^. Qj.poQry are, likewise, examples of Dr. Gregory. . . great talent, united with great memory. But if there be no ground for the vulgar opinion, that a strong faculty of retention is incompatible Avith intel- 2. That a iiigh de- lectual capacity in general, the converse opinion g ee o in ei igence ^^ ^^^ better founded, which has been main- supposes great power ^ ' of memory. tained, among others, by Hoffbauei*.^ This doc- trine does not, hoAvever, deserve an articulate refutation ; for the common experience of every one sufficiently 1 Teissier, Eloges des Hommes Savans, t. iv. 5 Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 24. Quintilian, Oral. p. 146. — Ed. xi. 2.— Ed. 2 [Biunde, Versiich. etc., as above.] [ Vita lii *< Seneca (M ) Controv. Pref. — Ed. JVfi/rarogress in the inductive philosojihy of mind, before this analysis of Aristotle could be appreciated at its |>roper value ; antl in fact, it was only after modern jihilosophers liad retliscovered the i)rincipal laws of B'ote D * *, p. 889. — Ed.) 2 [Poncius, Cursus Philosophicus, De Anima, 4 fFr. IJona Spei, Physica, p. iv. Indf Ani- Disp. Ixiii. qu. iii. concl. 3.] ma, disp. x. p. 94. Cf. Ancillon, Essais Phi 2 [Francisci de Oviedo Cursus Philoxophicus, los. (Xouv. Md.) \. ii. c. Hi. p. VS9.1 Lect. XXXI. METAPHYSICS. 429 naturally introduced the history of the king, and of the treachery of those who surrendered his person to his enemies; this again intro- duced the treachery of Judas Iscariot, and the sura of money whicb he received for his reward.* But if thoughts, and feelings, and conations (for you must observe, that the train is not limited to the The expression train pi,fe„omena of cognition only),- do not arise of thought includes the ^ i , • i phenomena of Cogni- <^i thciusclves, Dut Only in causal connection tion, Feeling and Cou- with preceding and subsequent modifications **'°°* of mind, it remains to be asked and answered, — Is there any law be- Do the links of this chain follow each other sides that of simple ^^^^.^^^, ^^j^^^. condition than that of simple connection which reg- ... uiates this train ? connection, — 111 other words, may any thought, feeling, or desire, be connected Avith any other? Or, is the succession regulated by other and special laws, according to which certain kinds of modification exclusively precede, and exclusively follow, each other? The slightest observation of the phrenomenon shows, that the latter alternative is the case ; and on this all philosophers are agreed. Nor do philosophers differ in regard to what kind of thoughts (and under that term. The point on which you will remark, I at present include also feel- phiiosophers diiTer; ^^^ ^^^^ conatt'ons) are associated together. and question to be ' t ,. , i • i • ^ i considered. i hey difter almost exclusively in regard to the subordinate question, of how these thoughts ought to be classified, and carried up into system. This, therefore, is the question to which 4 shall aildress myself, referring you for illustrations and examples of the fact and effects of Association, to the chapter on the subject in the first volume of Mr. Stewart's Elemoits^ in Avhich you will find its details treated with great eleijance and abilitv. In my last Lecture, I explained to you how thoughts, once expe- rienced, remain, though out of consciousness, rondifionsofRepro- Still ill posscssioii of the mind; and I have now duction, as general- ^^ ^\^Q^y ^q,,^ ]i,,^^. ^j^^gg thoughts retained in ized by philosophers; ' . , • . .• c • ^i ,, memorv, m.iv, Without any excitation from With- in all seven . ' . ' J out, be .'ig:iin retrieved by an excitation or awakening from other tlioughts witliin. Philosophers having observed, that one thought determined another to arise, and that 1 L^'t^iaJ/ian, part i. chap. iii. —En. J57i?wif nr.i, i. c. v. irorA.^, vol. ii. p. 257 Ilrowu, 2 [Cf Fries, yl»i(Aro/)o/i)^/>, vol. i 5 S, p. 20, Philosophy of the Hitman MinJ, Icct. xliv. p. «dit. 1820. Kritik, i. 5 3.3. H. Scliniid, V,r. 282 (edit 1R30).] [For Aristotle, see Reitt, such einer Mnnphysik rlrr inneren Nattir, pp. 2.'3<), Works, p. 892, 89.3. — Ed.] 342. Carus, PjycWoffiV, i. p. 18.3. Stewart. 3 Chap. v. Hori^, ii. 252. — Ed. 430 METAPHYSICS. \ Lect. XXXI this determination only took place between thoughts which stood in certain relations to each other, set themselves to ascertain and classify the kinds of correlation under which this occurred, in ordei to generalize the laws by which the phsenomenon of Reproduction was governed. Accordingly, it has been established, that thoughts are associated, that is, are able to excite each other; — 1°, If coexis- tent, or immediately successive, in time ; 2°, If their objects are conterminous or adjoining in space; 3°, If they hold the dependence to each other of cause and effect, or of mean and end, or of whole and part ; 4°, If they stand in a relation either of contrast or of similarity; 5°, If they are the operations of the same power, or of different powers conversant about the same object ; 6°, If their objects are the sign and the signified; or, 7°, Even if their objects are accidentally denoted by the same sound. These, as far as I recollect, are all the classes to which philoso- Aristotie reduces the p^ers have attempted to reduce the principles of , ' ., . ,. .^, Mental Association. Aristotle recalled the laws three; and implicitly to oiie canon. of this Connection to four, or rather to three, — Contiguity in time and space, Resemblance, and Contrariety.^ He even seems to have thought they miglit all be carried up into the one law of Coexistence. St. Augustin expiic- Aristotlc implicitly, St. Augustin^ explicitly, — itiy reduces these laws ^^,j^.^^ ^^^ ^^^^^. y^^^^ observed, —reduces associ- to one, — wliich the author calls the law of =^tion to a Single canoii, — VIZ., Thoughts that Redintegration. liavc oncc Coexisted in the mind are afterwards Maiebranche. associated. This law, which I would call the Wolf. ^ f-T^ -,■ ■ r- 1 T Biifinn^er "^^ ^^ Redintegration, was afterwards enounced Hume. by Maiebranche,^ Wolf,* and Bilfinger ; ' but without any reference to St. Austin. Hume, who thinks himself the first philosojjher -who had ever attempted to generalize the laws of association, makes them three, — Resemblance, Contiguity in time and place, and Cause and Gerard. Beattie. . "^ . ^ Effect." Gerard' and Beattie* adopt, with little modification, the Aristotelic classification. Omitting a hundred others, whose opinions would be curious in a his- stewart. Brown. ^^ ^j^^ doctrine, I shall notice only Stewart Stewart quoted. -^ „ ^ . and Brown. Stewart,-' after disclaiming any at- 1 De Memoriaet Reminiscentia.c.ii.^xin.-'El)- 7 Essay on Taste, part iii. § i. pp. 167,168, 2 Con/essiones, lib. X. chap, xix — Ed. edit. 1759 — Ed 3 Recherche de la Vcrite, 1. ii. C. v. — Ed. S Dissertations, Moral and Critical Of Iiri' 4 Psychologia Empirica, ^ 230. — Ed. agination, c ii. § 1 et scq., p 78. Cf. pp.9 5 See Reid's Works, p. 899. —Ed. 145. — Ed. 6 Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, 9 Elements, vol. ii. c V. part i. sect- ii •ect. iii. — Ed. Works, vol. iii. p. 263. — Ed. Lect. XXXI METAPHYSICS. 431 tempt at a complete enumeration, mentions two classes of circum- stances as useful to be observed. "The relations," he says, "upon which some of them are founded, are perfectly obvious to the mind; those which are the foundation of others, are discovered onl}- in consequence of particular eiforts of attention. Of the former kind are the relations of Resemblance and Analogy, of Contrariety, of Vicinity in time and jjlace, and those which arise from accidental coincidences in the sound of different words. These, in general, connect our thoughts together, when they are suffered to take their natural coui-se, and when we are conscious of little or no active exertion. Of the latter kind are tlie relations of Cause and Effect, of Means and End, of Premises and Conclusion ; and those others which regulate the train of thought in tlie mind of the philosopher, when he is engaged in a particular investigation." Brown ^ divides the circumstances affecting association into primary and secondary. Under tlie primary Prown's ciassifica- ^^^^.^ ^^ Suggestion, he includes Resemblance, Contrast, Contiguity in time and place, — a clas- sification identical with Aristotle's. By the secondary, lie means the vivacity, the recentness, and the frequent repetition of our thoughts; circumstances which, though they exert an influence on the recurrence of our tliouglits, belong to a different order of causes from those we are at present considering.- Now all the laws Avhicli T liave liitherto enumerated may be easily reduced to two, — the law of the Simul- The laws enumerated tancity, and the law of the Resemblance or admit of reduction to Affinity, of Tliouglit.'' Under Simultaneity I two; and tliese two -ii't t j. r^ 4.- •*•,*. 4.i„ niclude Immediate Consecution in tune to the again to one grand law. other category of Affinity every other circum- stance may be reduced. I shall take the several cases I have above cnuuRTated, and Imving exenii)litii'i] their influ- ence as associating principles, I shall show how they arc all only special modifications of the two laws of Simultaneity and Affinity; which two laws, I shall finally prove to you, are themselves only modifications of one supreme law, — the law of Redintegration. The first law, — ^^ that of Simultaneity, or of Coexistence ami Immediate Succession in time, — is too evident to require any illustration. "In passing along a road," as Mr. Stewart* observes, 1 PhUosophy of the Human Mind, ]ects.xxxiv. der innertn NnUir,i> 2-Jl. [Cf. Frie«, Anthro xxxvii. — Ed. pologif, i } 8, p. 29 (edit. 1S20)]. 2 See Rdd's Worku, p. 910. —Ed. •« Elrmrntf, vol. i. C v. p. i, i 1. Works, ii 8 See U. Schmid, Versuck tiner Metaphysik 252, 263. — Ed. 432 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXl *' which we have formerly travelled in the company of a friend, the particulars of the conversation in which we were The influence of the tlicu engaged, are frequently suggested to us by special laws, as associ- .1 i • . ^ -^i t ^ ^. . . , .,, the obiects we meet with. In such a scene, we ating principles, illus- '' _ ' trated. recollect that a particular subject was started; I. TheiawofSimni- ^'^^^ ^"^ passing the different houses, and plauta- taneity. tions, and rivers, the arguments we were discus- sing when we last saw them, recur spontane- ously to the memory. The connection which is formed in the mind between the Avords of a language and the ideas they denote; the connection Avhich is formed between the different words of a discourse we have committed to memory ; the connection between the different notes of a piece of music in the mind of the musician, are all obvious instances of the same general law of our nature." The second law, — that of the Affinity of thoughts, — will be best illustrated by the cases of which it is the II. The law of Af- more general expression. In the first jjlace, in ^°'*y the case of resembling, or analogous, or partially identical obiects, it will not be denied that these ^embling, analogous, _ ^ ' or partially identical virtually suggest each Other. The imagination objects. of Alexander carries me to the imagination of Caesar, Caesar to Charlemagne, Charlemagne lo Napoleon. The vision of a portrait suggests the image of the person portrayed. In a company one anecdote suggests another analogous, t This princii^le is admirably illustrated from the mouth fof Shak&peare's Merchant of Venice; " My wind, cooling my broth, Would blow me to an ague, when I thought. What harm a wind too ^reat might do at sea. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, But I should think of shallows and of flats. And see my wealthy Andiew dock'd in sand, . Vailing her high top lower than her ribs. To kiss her burial. Should I go to church. And see the holy edifice of stone, And not bethink me strait of dang'rous rocks? "Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side, Would scatter all the spices on the stream. Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks; And in a word, — but even now worth this. And now worth nothing." 1 1 Merchant of Venice, act i. Scene i. Lect. XXXI. METAPHYSICS. 433 That resembling, analogous, or partially identical objects stand in reciprocal affinity, is apparent ; they are its strongest exemplifica- tions. So far there is no difficulty. In the second place, thoughts standing to each other in the relation of contrariety or contrast, are mutually 2. The case of con- suggestive. Thus the thought of vice suggests trarv or contrasted , , i , r. • . ^ ^ ^\ i i 11 the thouijht of virtue ; and, in the mental world, thoughts. o ' ' the prince and the peasant, kings and beggars, are inseparable concomitants. On this principle are dependent those associations which constitute the charms of antithesis and wit. pTlius the whole pathos of Milton's apostrophe to light, lies in the contrast of his own darkness to the resplendent object he addresses : " Hail, holy light, offspring of heaven first-born, Thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovran vital lamp ; but thou Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn." ^ It is contrast that animates the Ode of Horace to Archytas: " Te maris et terrae, numeroque carcntis arenas Mensorem cohibent, Archyta, Pulveris exigui prope littus parva Matinum Munera : nee quidquam tibi prodest Aerias tcntasse domos, imimoque rotundum rcrcurrisse poluni, morituro."- The same contrast illuminates the stanza of Gray : " The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power. And all that beauty, all that wealth ere gave, Awaits alike the inevitable hour; — The paths of glory lead but to the grave." And in what else does the beauty of the following line consist, but in the contrast and connection of life and death ; life being repre- sented as but a wayfaring from grave to grave ? Who can think of Marius sitting amid the ruins of Carthage, •without thinking of the resemblance of the consul and the city, — I Poi-arfise Loif, book iii. — Ed. 2 Carm. i xxviii. — Ed. 3 [Gregor. Naiitni. Camt. xlr.\ 55 3. The law of con tiguity. 434 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXI without thinking of the difFerence between their past and present fortunes? And in the incomparable epigram of Molsa on the great Pompey, the effect is produced by the contrast of the life and death of the hero, and in the conversion of the very fact of his post- humous dishonor into a theme of the noblest panegyric. " Dux, Pharia quamvis jaceas inhumatus arena, Non ideo fati est savior ira tui : Indignum fuerat tcUus tibi victa scpulcrum ; Non decuit ca'lo, te, nisi, Magne, tegi.''^ Thus that objects, though contrasted, are still akin, — still stand to each other in a relation of affinity, dej^ends Depends on the log- ^n their logical analogy. The axiom, that the ical principle, — that i i i r> ^ -^ • , , ... , , _ knowledo-e oi contraries is one, proves that the the knowledge of con- ® ' ^ traries is one. thought of the one involves the thought of the other.2 In the third place, objects contiguous in place are associated, j You recollect the famous passage of Cicero in the first chapter of the fifth book De FinibuSy of which the following is the conclusion: — "Tanta vis admonitionis est in locis, ut, non sine causa, ex his memoriae deducta sit disciplina. ... Id quidem infinitum in hac urbe ; quocumque enini ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vesti- gium ponimiis." ' But how do objects adjacent in place stand in affinity to each other ? Simply because local contiguity binds up objects, otherwise unconnected, into a single object of perceptive thought. In the fourth place, thoughts of the whole and the parts, of the thing and its properties, of the sign and the 4. The law of whole .i • • -a ^ r .ti •*. • a ^ thingr sis;nmed, — oi these it is supernuous to and parts, etc. . . . . illustrate either the reality of the influence, or to show that they are only so many forms of affinity; both are equally manifest. But in this case affinity is not the only principle of association ; here simultaneity also occurs. One observation 1 may make to show, that what Mr. Stewart promulgates as a dis- tinct principle of association, is only a subordinate modification of the two great laws I have laid down, — I mean his association of objects, arising from accidental coincidences in the sound of the words by which they are denoted. Here the association between 1 [Cannina JUustrium Foetarum Italorum, t Contrariety equivalent to Simultaneity, inas* ri 369. Florentise, 1719] much as contraries, etc., have common attri* 2 [Alex. Aphrodisiensis (In Top. i. 18) makes butes.] Lect. XXXI. METAPHYSICS. 435 the objects or ideas is not immediate. One object or idea signified suggests its term signifying. But a complete or partial identity in sound suggests another word, and that word suggests the thing or thoucht it si<=rnifies. The two things or thoucjhts are thus asso- ciated, only mediately, through the association of their signs, and the sevei'al immediate associations are very simple examples of the general laws. In the fifth place, thoughts of causes and eflEects reciprocally suggest each other. Thus the falling snow 5. The law of cause ^^f^^^^^ ^^e imagination of an inundation; a and effect. r-i-ii i o i i shower ot hail a thought ot the destruction of the fruit; the sight of wine carries u's back to the grapes, or the sight of the grapes carries us forward to the wine ; and so forth. But cause and efiect not only naturally but necessarily suggest each other; they stand in the closest affinity, and, there- fore, whatever phenomena are subsumed under this relation, as indeed under all relations, are, consequently, also in affinity. I have now, I think, gone through all the circumstances which philosophers have constituted into separate laws All these separate ^f Association ; and shown that they easily laws thus resolved in- , , , • , . i . i /• o • i , . c- u resolve themselves into the two laws ot bimul- to two: — Simultane- ity and Affinity: and tancity and Affinity. I now proceed to show these again are re- jqh that thcsc two laws themsclves are reduci- solvable into tlie one i i , ,i x i , i • i T , . ,•! l ,11 *1, « ble to that one law, which 1 would call the grand law ot IJedinte- . . ' . . t gration. law of Redintegration or Totality, which, as I alreadv stated, I liave found incidentally ex- pressed bv St. Anirustln.' This law may be thus enounceil, — Those thoughts su of Redintegration, if "^ asked, How IS this laAv itself explained ? On found inexplicable. what principle of our intellectual nature is it founded? To this no answer can be leariti- mately demanded. It is enough for the natural philosopher to Lect. XXXII. METAPHYSICS. 43T reduce the special laws of the attraction of distant bodies to the one principle of gravitation ; and his tlieory is not invalidated, because he can give no account of how gravitation is itself determined. In all our explanations of the pha^nomena of mind and matter, we must always arrive at an ultimate fact or law, of which we are wholly unable to afford an ulterior explanation. We are, therefore, entitled to decline attempting any illustration of the ground on which the supreme fact or law of Association reposes ; and if we do attempt such illustration, and fail in the endeavor, no presump- tion is, therefore, justly to be raised against the truth of the fact or principle itself. But an illustration of this great law is involved in the |)rinciple of the unity of the mental energies, as the activ- Attempted iiiusira- ities of the subject ouc and indivisible, t<> wliich tioii of the ground on J havc had occasion to refer. ^ "The various which thi8 law re- ^^^^ of mind must not be viewed as single,— poses, from the unity . n i i of the subject of the ^^ isolated, manifestations ; they all belong to mental energies the One activity of the cgo : and, consequently, if our various mental energies are only partial modifications of the same general activity, they must all be associ- ated amonsr themselves. Every mental enerijv, — everv thouirht. feeling, desire that is excited, excites at the same time all other pre- viously existent activities, in a certain degree ; it spreads its excita- tion over the whole activities of the mind, as the agitation of one place of a .sheet of water expands itself, in wider and wider circles, over the whole surface of the fluid," although, in proportion to its eccentricity, it is always becoming fainter, until it is at last not to be perceived. The force of every internal activity exists only in a certain limited degree ; consequently, the excitation it determines has only likewise a certain limited power of expansion, and is con- tinually losing in vigor in proportion to its eccentricity. Thus there are formed jiarticular centres, ]»articular spheres, of internal unity, within which the activities stand to each other in a closer relation of action and reiiction ; and this, in proj>ortion as they more or less belong already to a single energy, — in jtroportion as they gravitate more or less proximately to the same centre of action. A plurality, a complement, of several activities forms, in a stricter sense, <>ne whole activity for itself; an invigoration of any of its several activi- ties is, therefore, an invigoration of the part of a whole activity; and as a part c»nnot be active for itself alone, there, consequently, results an invigoration of the whole, that is, of all the other j>art8 1 See atove, lect. xxx. p. 415. — Ed. '^ Cf. Pope, Essay on Man, iv. 363. — Kd 438 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXU. of which it is composed. Tluis the supreme law of association, — that activities excite each other in proportion as they have previ- ously belonged, as parts, to one whole activity, — is explained from the still more universal j^rinciple of the unity of all our mental energies in general.^ "But, on the same principle, Ave can also explain the two subal- tern laws of Simultaneity and Affinity. The The laws of Simui- ph.'cnomena of mind are manifested under a two- taueitv and Afflnitv, /^ i i -,■ • n n i , explicable on the .ame ^""^'^ Condition or form; for they are only re- priiicipie. vcalcd, 1°, As occurrcnccs in time; and, 2°, As the energies or modifications of the eofo, as their cause and subject. Time and Self are thus the two forms of the internal world. By these tAvo forms, therefore, every particular, every limited, unity of operation, must be controlled ; — on them it must depend. And it is jirecisely these tAvo forms that lie at the root of the tAvo laws of Simultaneity and Affinity. Thus acts Avhich are exerted at the same time, belong, by that very circumstance, to the same particular unity, — to the same definite sphere of mental energy; in other words, constitute through their simultaneity a single actiAdty. Thus energies, hoAvever heterogeneous in them- selves, if developed at once, belong to the same activity, — consti- tute a particular unity ; and they Avill operate Avith a greater sug. gestive influence on each other, in proportion as they are more closely connected by the bond of time. On the other hand, the affinity of mental acts or modifications Avill be determined by their particular relations to the ego, as their cause or subject. As all the activities of mind obtain a unity in being all the energies of the same soul or active principle in general, so they are bound up into particular unities, inasmuch as they belong to some particular fac- ulty- — resemble each other in the common ground of their mani- festation. Thus cognitions, feelings, and volitions, severally aAvaken cognitions, feelings, and volitions ; for they severally belong to the same faculty, and, through that identity, are themselves constituted into distinct imities : or again, a thouijht of the cause suorCf. Fries, Anthropologic, i. 29, { 8. Kritile, i. § 334 f Lect. XXXII. METAPHYSICS. 439 mutually excite each other upon the same principle ; for these are logically associated, inasmuch as, by the laws of thought, the notion of one opposite necessarily involves the notions of the other; and it is also a psychological law, that contrasted objects relieve each other. Ojyposita, juxta posita, se invice7n coUustrant. When the operations of different faculties are mutually suggestive, they are, likewise, internally connected by the nature of their action ; for they are either conversant with the same object, and have thus been originally determined by the same affection from without, or they have originally been associated through some form of the mind itself; thus moral cognitions, moral feelings, and moral volitions, may suggest each other, thi'ough the common bond of morality ; the moral principle in this case muting the operations of the three fundamental jiowers into one general activity."^ , . Before leaving this subject, I must call your attention to a cir- cumstance which I formerly incidentally noticed.^ Thoughts, apparent- It sometimes happens that thoughts seem to /y unassociated. ^e..u> f^|,^^^, ^.^^j^ ^^j^^.^. immediately, between which to follow each other ... .,, , ii/» •• immediately. ^^ ^^ imi)Ossible to detect any bond or association. If this anomaly be insoluble, the whole theory of association is overthrown. IMiilosophers have accordingly set them- selves to account for this phjenomenon. To deny the fact of the pluenomenon is impossible ; it must, therefore, be exi)lained on the hypothesis of association. Xow, in their attempts at such an expla- nation, all philosophers agree in regard to tlie first step of the solution, but they differ in regard to the second. They agree in this, — that, admitting the apparent, the phtenomenal, immediacy of the consecution of the two unassociated thoughts, they deny its reality. Tlu-y all affirm, that there have actually intervened one or more thoughts, through the mediation- of which, the suggestion in question has been effected, and on the assumption of which inter- mediation the theory of association remains intact. For example, let us suppose that A and C are thoughts, not on any law of associ- ation suggestive of eacli other, and that X and C appear to our con- sciousness as following each other immediately. In this case, I say, philosophers agree in su]>posing, that a thought B, associated with A and with C, and which consequently could be awakened by .\, and could awaken C, has intervened. So far they arc at one. But now comes their separation. It is asked, how can a tliouglit be supposed to intervene, of which consciousness gives us no indi- 1 H. Schmid, VwHfA finrr M'M/>/.. p, 242-4: tioiis — Ed.] Cf. Kcn/'i H'ori.', Notes D*« [translated with occasioual brief iuterpoln- and D***. — Ed. 2 See above, lect. xviii. p 244 — Ed. 440 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXH cation ? In reply to this, two answers have been made. By one set of philosophers, among whom I may particularly womo eso xpi specify Mr. Stewart, it is said, that the immedi- catiou adopted by ^ *' ' ' philosophers. ate thought B, having been awakened by A, did rise into consciousness, suggested C, and was instantly forgotten. This solution Ls apparently that exclusively known in Britain. Other philosophers, following the indication of Leibnitz, by whom the theory of obscure or latent activities was first explicitly promulgated, maintain that the intermediate thought never did rise into consciousness. They hold that A excited B, but that the excitement Avas not strong enough to rouse B from it& state of latency, though strong enoiigh to enable it obscurely to excite C, whose latency was less, and to aiford it vivacity sufficient to rise into consciousness. Of these opinions, I have no hesitation in declaring for the latter. I formerly showed you an analysis of 'o be explained on some of the most jtalpable and familiar phae^ the principle of la- j^Q^iena of mind, which made the supposition of tent modifications of , . •* ^. jaijj(j, mental modifications latent, but not inert, one of absolute necessity. In particular, I proved this in regard to the phjenomena of Perception.^ But the fact, of such latencies being established in one faculty, they afibrd an easy and philosophical explanation of the phaenomena in all. In the present instance, if we admit, as admit we must, that activities, can endure, and consequently can operate, out of consciousness, th& question is at once solved. On this doctrine, the whole theory of association obtains an easy and natural completion ; as no defi- nite line can be drawn between clear and obscure activities, which melt insensibly into each ; and both, being of the same nature, must be supposed to operate undeV the same laws. In illustration of the mediatory agency of latent thoughts in the process of sugges- tion, I formerly alluded to an analogous phtenomenon under the laws of physical motion, which I may again call to your remem- brance. If a series of elastic balls, say of ivory, are placed in a straight line, and in mutual contact, and if the first be sharply struck, what happens? The intermediate balls remain at rest; the last alone is moved. The other doctrine, which proceeds upon the hypothesis that we can be conscious of a thought and that thought coun er so u- ^^ instantly forsrotten, has everything against it» tion untenable. ... o o > and nothing in its favor. In the first place, it does not, like the counter hypothesis of latent agencies, only apply 1 See above, lect. xviii. p. 242. — Ed Lect. XXXII. METAPHYSICS. 441 a principle which is ah-eady proved to exist; it on the contrary lays its foundation in a fact which is not shown to be real. But in the second place, this fact is not only not shown to be real : it is im- probable, — nay impossible; for it contradicts the whole analogy of the intellectual jdia^nomena. Tlie memory or retention of a thought is in proportion to its vivacity in consciousness ; but that all trace of its existence so completely perished with its presence, that reproduction became impossible, even the instant after, — this assumption violates every probability, in gratuitously disallowing the established law of the proportion between consciousness and memory. But on this subject, having formerly spoken, it is needless now again to dwell. ^ So much for the laws of association, — the laws to which the faculty of Reproduction is subjected. This faculty, I formerly mentioned, might be considered as oper- ating, either spontaneously, without any interference of the will,, or as modified in its action by the intervention of volition. In the one case, as in tlie other, the Reproductive Faculty acts in sub- servience to its own laws. In the former case, one thought is al- lowed to suggest another according to the gieater gener^il connec- tion subsisting between them ; in the latter, the The Reproductive /» ,. • i Faculty divided info '"^ct of volitiou, by concentrating attention upon two: — Spontaneous a certain determinate class of associating cir- Suggestion and Ueni- cumstances, bcstows Oil these circumstances an iniscence. t • •< i .li extraordinary vivacity, and, consequently, ena- bles them to obtain the preponderance, and exclusively to deter- mine the succession of the intellectual train. The former of these cases, where the Reproductive Faculty is left wholly to itself, may not im])roperly be called Spontaneous Suggestion, or Suggestion simply; the latter ought to obtain the name of Reminiscence or Recollection, (in Greek dvd/AKr/o-is). The employment of these terms in these significations, corresponds with the meaning they obtain in common usage. Philosophers have not, ]i<)\vi.'\ or, always so applied them. But as I have not entered on a criticism of the analyses attempted by philosoi)hers of the faculties, so I shall say nothing in illustration of their perversion of tlie terms by which they have denoted them. Recollection or Reminiscence supposes two things. "First, it is- necessary that the mind recognize the identity What Reminiscence ^^ ^^^.^ rei>resentations, an.l then it is necessary that the inin ^gfjjjig^ forgotten a thmg, we could so categorically af- firm, — it is not that, when some one named to us another; or, it is that, when it is itself presented. The question was worthy of his subtlety, and the answer does honor to his pene- tration. His principle is, that we cannot seek in our own memory for that of which we have no sort of recollection, " Quod omnino obliti fueramus amissum quaerere non possumus." - We do not seek what has been our first reflective thought in infancy, the first rea- soning we have performed, the first free act which raised us above the rank of automata. We are conscious that the attempt would be fruitless ; and even if modifications thus lost should chance to recur to our mind, we should not be able to say with truth that we had recoUected them, for we should have no criterion by which to recognize them, " Cujus nisi memor essem, si ofteretur mihi, non invenirem, quia non agnoscerem." And what is the consequence he deduces? It is worthy of your attention. From the moment, then, that we seek aught in our memory, we declare, by that very act, that we have not alto- its condition, -the j^^^. fo^. ^^^en it; we still hold of it, as it law of totality. * * ' . , • , i , i were, a part, and by this part, which we hold, we seek that which we do not hold, " Ergo non totum exciderat ; sed ex parte qua tenebatur, alia qua;rebatur." And what is the secret motive which determines us to this research ? It is that our memoi-y feels, that it does not see together all that it was accus- tomed to see together, " Quia sentiebat se memoria non simul vol- vere quoe simul solebat." It feels Avith regret that it still only dis- covers a part of itself, and hence its disquietude to seek out what is missing, in order to reannex it to the whole ; like to those reptiles, if the comparison may be permitted, whose members when cut asunder seek again to reunite, " Et quasi detruncata consuetudine C'laudicans, reddi quod deerat flagitabat." But when this detached portion of our memory at length presents itself, — the name, for example, of a person, which had escaped us ; how shall we proceed 1 Ancillon, Essais Philofophiques, ii. pp. 141, 142. — Ed. Cf. Andre, Traite de I' Homme, i, 27? ^ Confessions, lib. x. caps. 18, 19. I Lect. XXXII. METAPHYSICS. 443 to reannex it to the otlier ? We have only to allow nature to do her work. For if the name, being pronounced, goes of itself to reunite itself to the thought of the person, and to place itself, so to speak, upon his face, as upon its ordinary seat, we will say, without hesitation, — there it is. And if, on the contrary, it obstinately refuses to go there to place itself, in order to rejoin the thought to which we had else attached it, we will say peremptorily and at once, — no, it does not suit, "Non connectitur, quia non simul cum illo cog- itari consuevit." But when it suits, where do we discover this luminous accordance which consummates our research? And where can we discover it, except in our memory itself, — in some back •chamber I mean, of that labyrinth where what we considered as lost had only gone astray, " Et unde adest, nisi ex ipsa memoria.'' And the proof of this is manifest. When the name presents itself to our mind, it appears neither novel nor strange, but old and famil- iar, like an ancient property of Avhich we have recovered the title- deeds, " Non enim quasi novum credimus, sed recordantes a2)]>ro- bamus." Such is the doctrine of one of the profoundest thinkers of an- tiquity, and whose philosophical opinions, were they collected, ar- ranged, and illustrated, would raise him to as high a rank among metaphysicians, as he already holds among theologians. "Among psychologists, those who have written on Memory and Reproduction with the greatest detail and pre- Defect in the analysis cision, have Still failed in giving more than a of Memory and Repro- meagre outUnc of tlicsc Operations. They have u ion y p>) u taken account only of the notions which sucfizest ogist*, — in recogniz- _ •' _ ^^^ ing only a consecutive each Other, with a distinct and palpable noto- ■order of association. rictv. They have viewcd the associations only in the order in whith language is comjietent to exjiress them ; and as language, which renders them still more )»al- palile and distinct, can only express thcni in a consecutive order, — can only ex[»ress them one after another, they have liecn led to suppose that thoughts only aw.ikcn in succession. Thus, a series of ideas mutually associated, resembles, on the doctrine of pliiloso- phers, a chain in which every link draws up that which follows; and it is by means of these links that intelligence labors thiough, m the act of reminiscence, to the end which it ))roposes to attain.' " There are some, indeed, among them, who are ready to acknowl- . note t — Ed. 444 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXIL Element in the plia- nomena, which the common theory fails to explain, — the move- raeut of thought from one order of subjects to another. the mind may choose ; they admit even that every link is attached to several others, so that the whole forms a kind of trellis, — a kind of net-work, which the mind may traverse in every direction, but still always in a single direction at once, — alM'ays in a succession similar to that of speech. This manner of explaining reminiscence is founded solely on this, — tliat, content to have observed all that is distinctly manifest in the phjenomenon, they have paid no attention to the under play of the latescent activities, — paid no attention to all that custom conceals, and conceals the more effectually in pro- portion as it is more completely blended with the natural agencies, of mind. "Thus their theory, true in itself, and departing from a well-estab- lished jirinciple, — the Association of Ideas, ex- plains in a satisfactory manner a portion of the phienoraena of Reminiscence ; but it is incom- plete, for it is unable to account for the prompt^ easy, and varied o])eration of this faculty, or for all the marvels it performs. On the doctrine of the philosophers, we can explain how a scholar repeats, without hesitation, a lesson he has learned, for all the words are associated in his mind according to the order in which he has studied them ; how he demonstrates a geometrical theorem, the parts of which are connected together in the same manner ; these and similar reminiscences of simple succes- sions present no difficulties which the common doctrine cannot resolve. But it is impossible, on this doctrine, to explain the rapid and certain movement of thought, which, with a marvellous facility, passes from one order of subjects to another, only to return again to the first ; which advances, retrogades, deviates, and reverts, sometimes marking all the points on its route, again clearing, as if in play^ immense intervals ; which runs oA^er now in a manifest order, now in a seeming irregularity, all the notions relative to an object, often relative to several, between which no connection could be suspected ;, and this without hesitation, without uncertainty, without error, as the hand of a skilful musician expatiates over the keys of the most complex organ. All this is inexplicable on the meagre and con- tracted theory on which the pha^nomena of reproduction have been thought explained." ^ "To form a correct notion of the phaenomena of Reminiscence, it is requisite, that we consider under what conditions it is determined to exertion. In the first place, it is to be noted that, at every crisis 1 Cardaillac, [Etudes Etcmentaires tie PhihaophU, t. ii. c v p 124 et seq. — Ed ] Lect. XXXII. METAPHYSICS. 445 Conditions under ■which Kcminiscence if; dt'tfrmined to exer- tion. 1. Momentary cir- cumstances tlie causes of our mental activity. 2. The determin- ing circunistiince must constitute a want. of our existence, momentary circumstances are the causes wliich awaken our activity, and set our recollection at Avork to supply the necessaries of thought. ^ Ik the second place, it is as constituting a want (and by wcmt I mean the result either of an act of de- sire or of volition), that the determining circutn- stance tends principally to awaken the thoughts with which it is associated. .This being the case, we should expect that each circumstance which constitutes a want should suggest, likewise, the notion of an object, or objects, proper to sat- isfy it; and this is what actually happens. It is, however, fur- ther to be observed, that it is not enough that the want suggests the idea of the object ; for if that idea were alone, it would remain without effect, since it could not guide me in the procedure I should follow. It is necessary, at the same time, that to the idea of this object there should be associated the notion of the relation of this object to the want, of the place where I may find it, of the means by which I may procure it, and turn it to account, etc. For instance, I wish to make a quotation : — This want awakens in me the idea of the author in whom the ])assage is to be found, which I am desir- ous of citing; but this idea would be fruitless, unless there were conjoined, at the same time, the representation of the volume, of the place Avherc I may obtain it, of the means I must employ, etc. Hence I infer, in the first place, that a want does not awaken an idea of its object alone, but that it awakens it acconi)ianied with a number, more or less con- siderable, of accessory notions, which form, as it were, its train or attendance. This train may vary according to the nature of the want which suggests the notion of an object; but the train can never i'all wholly off', and it becomes more indissolubly attached to the object, in proportion as it has been more frequently called up in attendance. "I infer, in the second place, that this accompaniment of acccs.sory notions, simultaneously suggested with the prin- I)al idea, is far from being as vivitlly and h/ii the process to which I would give the name of the Comparatire. In this compound ojx-ration, it is true that the re]>resentative act is the most conspicuous, perhaps the most essential, element. For, in 454 METAPHYSICS. Lect XXXIIl the first place, it is a condition of the possibility of the act of comparison, — of the act of analytic synthesis, The Imagination of that the material on which it operates (that is, common lanpiage is ^^le objccts reproduced in their natural connec- equivalent to the pro- . ^ i \ t ■, -, cesses of Kepresenta- ^^^^^V s'lould be held up to its observation in tion and Comparison. a clear light, in order that it may take note of their various circumstances of relation ; and, in the second, that the result of its own elaboration, that is, the new arrangements Avhich it proposes, should be realized in a vivid act of representation. Thus it is, that, in the view both of the vulgar and of philosophers, the more obtrusive, though really the more subordinate, element in this compound process has been elevated into the principal constituent ; whereas, the act of compar- ison, — the act of separation and reconstruction, has been regarded as identical with the act of representation. Thus Imagination, in the common acceptation of the terra, is not a simple but a compound faculty, — a faculty, The process of Rep- however, in which representation, — the vivid re^entationtheprinci- exhibition of an object, — forms the principal pal constituent of Im- . i r agination, as com- Constituent. If, therefore, we were obliged to moniy understood. find a commou word for every elementary pro- cess of our analysis, — Imaginatio)i, would be the term, which, Avith the least violence to its meaning, could be accommodated to express the Representative Faculty. By Imagination, thus limited, you are not to suppose that the faculty of representing mere objects of sense Imagination not alonc'is meant. On "the contrarv, a vigorous limited to objects ol . . „ ^ o genge. power of representation is as indispensable a condition of success in the abstract sciences, as in the poetical and plastic arts ; and it may, accordingly, be reason- ably doubted whether Aristotle or Homer were possessed of the more poAverful imagination. " We may, indeed, affirm, that there are as many difierent kinds of imagination as there are different kinds of intellectual activity. There is the imagination of abstraction, which represents to us certain ])hases of an object to the exclusion of oth- ers, and, at the same time, the sign by which the phases are united ; the imagination of wit, Avhich represents differences and contrasts, and the resemblances by which these are again combined'; the imagination of judgment, which represents the various qualities of an object, and binds them together under the relations of sub- stance, of attribute, of mode ; the imagination of reason, which represents a princij^le in connection with its consequences, the effect in dependence on its cause ; the imagination of feeling, which rep- Lect. XXXm. METAPHYSICS. 45o resents the accessory images, kindred to some particular, and which therefore confer on it greater compass, depth, and intensity ; tlie imagination of volition, wliich represents all the circumstances which concur to persuade or dissuade from a certain act of will ; tlie im agination of the p;issions, which, according to the nature of the affection, represents all that is homogeneous or analogous; finally, the imagination of the poet, which represents whatever is new, or beautiful, or sublime, — whatever, in a word, it is determined to represent by any interest of art." ^ The term imagination, however, is less generally applied to the representations of the Comparative Faculty considered in the abstract, than to the representations of sensible objects, concretely modified by comparison. The two kinds of imagination are in fact not frequently combined. Accordingly, using the term in this its ordinary extent, that is, in its limitation to objects of sense, it is finely said by Mr. Hume : "Nothing is more daniierous to reason than the fliijhts of imamnation, and nothinir has been the occasion of more mistakes among j)hiloso])hers. Men of bright fancies may, in this respect, be compared to those angels whom the Scriptures represent as covering their eyes with their wmgs.^ Considering the Representative Faculty in subordination to its two determinants, the faculty of Reproduction Three principal or- and tlic faculty of Comjiarison or Elaboration, ders in wi.ich Im- ^^.^. j^^^^, distinguish three principal orders in agination represents i . i V • ^ ijg^g which Imagination represents ideas : — "1°, The Natural order ; 2", The Logical order ; 3°, The Poetical order. The natural order is that in which we receive the impression of external objects, or the order ac- 1. The niiturai or- cording to which our thoughts siiontaneouslv 2. The logical order. gi'^up themselves. The logical order consists in pix^senting Avhat is universal, prior to wliat is contained under it as particular, or in presenting the i)articulai-s first, and then ascending to the universal which thev constitute. The former is the order of deduction, the latter that of induction. Tliese two orders have this in common, that they deliver to us notions in the dependence in which the antecedent explains tlie subsequent. The poetical order consists in seizing individual 3. The poetical or- • ^ i • • ^i • i , Circumstances, and in grou]>ino: tliem iii such a ^er '^^ 1 -' manner that tlie imagination shall re])resent them 80 as they might be offered by the sense. The natural order is in- voluntary; it is established independently of our concurrence. The I Ancillon, Eisais PhilosafkiqMts, ii. 151. 2 Treatise of Human Saturt, book 1. part iv. S 7.— Eix 456 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXIIl logical order is a child of art, it is the result of our will ; but it is conformed to the laws of intelligence, which tend always to recall the particular to the general, or the general to the particular. The poetical order is exclusively calculated on effect. Pindar Avould not be a lyric poet, if his thoughts and images followed each other in the common order, or in the logical order. The state of mind in which thought and feeling clothe themselves in lyric forms, is a state in which thoughts and feelings are associated in an extraordinary manner, — in which they have, in fact, no other relation than that which groups and moves them around the dominant thought or feeling which forms the subject of the ode." "Thoughts Avhich follow each other only in the natural order, or as they are associated in the minds of men in. Associations tedious, general, form tedious conversations and tiresome unpleasing, and agree- rp, w ..v. ^v i i i ^,j,g books. ihoughts, on the other hand, whose connection is singular, capricious, extraordinary, are unpleasing ; whether it be that they strike us as improbable, or that the effort which has been required to produce, supposes a cor- responding effort to comprehend. Thoughts whose association is at once simple and new, and which, though not previously witnessed in conjunction, are yet apjDroximated without a violent exertion, — such thoughts please universally, by affording the mind the j:)k'asures of novelty and exercise at once." " A peculiar kind of imagination, determined by a peculiar order of association, is usually found in every period Peculiar kinds of Qf jjfg^ j^ every scx, in every country, in every imagination determin- ,. . . -. , , „ . . ,, ed by peculiar orders ^'^^'S'^^' A knowledge of men pnncipally con- of association. sists in a knowledge of the principles by which their thoughts are linked and represented. The study of this is of importance to the instructor, in order to direct the character and intellect of his pupils; to the statesman, that he may exert his influence on the public opinion and manners of a people ; to the poet, that he may give truth and reality to his dra- matic situations; to the orator, in order to convince and persuade; to the man of the world, if he would give interest to his conversa- tion." "Authors who have made a successful study of this subject, skim over a multitude of circumstances under which Difference between jjj^ occurrence has taken place ; because they are a cultivated and a vul- ... . , . , ^j.jj^jjj^ aware that it is proper to reject what is only accessory to the object which they would present in prominence. A vulgar mind forgets and spares nothing ; he is; ignorant that conversation is always but a selection ; that every story Lect. xxxiit. metaphysics. 457 is subject to tlie laws of dramatic poetry, — festinat ad eventum : and that all which does not concur to the effect, destroys or weakens it. The involuntary associations of their thoughts are imperative on minds of this description ; they are held in thraldom to the order and circumstances in Avhich their perceptions were originally ob' tained,"' This has not, of course, escai)od the notice of the greatest observer of human nature. JMrs. Quickly, in i-emimling Falstaff of his promise of marriage, supplies a good example of this peculiarity- " Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in mj Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wed- nesday in "Wliitsun week, when the })rince broke thy head for liken- inir his father to a siniring man of Windsor," — and so forth. In Martinus Scriblerus, the coachman tluis describes a scene in the Bear Garden : " lie saw two men fight a prize ; one was a fiiir man, a sergeant in the guards; the other black, a butcher; the sergeant had red breeches, the butcher blue ; they fought upon a stage, about four o'clock, and the sergeant wounded the butcher in the leg." " Dreaming, Somnambulism, Reverie, are so many eiFects of im- agination, determined by association, — at least Dreaming an effect ^^.^^^^ ^f j^^j,^,| j^^ yf\^x(t\\ theSC havC a decisive of ima;;ination, deter- t^^ • • xi a. mined by association. "ifiuence. If an impression on the sense often commences a dream, it is by imagination and suggestion tliat it is developed and accomplished. Dreams have frequently a degree of vivacity which enables them to compete with the reality ; and if the events which they represent to us were in accordance with the circumstances of time and })lace in which we stand, it would be almost impossible to distinguish a vivid dream from a sensible perception."- "If," says Pascal,'' "we dreamt every niglit the same thing, it would perhaps affect us as powerfully as the objects which we perceive every day. And if an artisan were certain of dreaming every night for twelve hours that he wa* king, I am convinced that he would be almost as happy as a king, who dreamt for twelve liours that he was an artisan. If we dreamt every night that we were pin"sue. • 3 JBreetV, i. 203. — Ed. 2 De Finibiis, ii. 32, translated from Euripi- i Ancillon, Essais Philos. ii. 166. — E» des, (quoted by Macrobius, Sat. vii. 2): — •■> Rhft.n. 12 aud 13. — Ed. 'ns ^5u To« auSffvza ixifivrtabai irivoov. — ^ Lib. x. epigr. 23. — Ed. Ed, ^ Aslronomicon, iv. 4 — Ed. Lect. XXXm. METAPHYSICS. > 461 In the words of Pope : " Man never is, hut always to be blest." ^ I shall terminate the consideration of Imagination Proper by a speculation concerning the organ whicli it em- imagination em- t plovs in tlic representations of sensible objects. ploys the organs of rpj^^ ^ ^^^j^j^j^ -j. ^^^^ employs scems to be sense in the represen- i i r. <-i tations of sensible Ob- "« "^^her than the organs themselves of Sense, jects. on which the original impressions were made, and through Avhich they were originally per- ceived. Experience has shown, that Imagination depends on no one part of the cerebral appai-atus exclusively. There is no portion of the brain which has not been destroyed by mollification, or indu- ration, or external lesion, without the general faculty of Representa- tion being injured. But experience equally proves, that the intra- cranial portion of any external organ of sense cannot be destroyed, without a certain paxtial abolition of the Imagination Proj)er. For example, there are many cases recorded by medical observers, of persons losing their sight, who have also lost the faculty of represent- ing the images of visible objects. They no longer call up such objects by reminiscence, they no longer dream of them. Now in these cases, it is found that not merely the external instrument of sight, — the eye, — has been disorganized, but that the disorganization has extended to those parts of the brain which constitute the internal instrument of this, sense, that is, the optic nerves and thalami. If the latter, — the real organ of vision, — remain sound, the eye alone being destroyed, the imagination of colors and forms remains as vigorous as when vision was entire. Similar cases are recorded in regard to the deaf These facts, added to the observation of the internal jjluenomena which take place during our acts of representa- tion, make it, I think, more than probable that there are as many organs of Imagination as there are orpins of Sense. Thus I have a distinct consciousness, that, in the internal representation of visi- ble ol)jects, the same organs are at work which operate in the exter- nal perception of these; and tlie same holds good in an imagination of the objects of Hearing, Touch, Taste, and Smell. r>ut not only sensible perceptions, vohuitary motions likewise are imitated in and by the iinagination. I can, in Voluntary motions imagination, represent the action of si)eech, the imit.itpfl in and by the i n i r- i i imuginution. V''^y ^' ^''^' '"I'scles of tlic Countenance, the move- ment of the limbs; and, when I do this, I feel clearly that I awaken a kind of tension in the same nerves through 1 Essay on Man, i. 95. — Ed. 462 METAPHYSICS. Le€t. XXXIII which, by an act of will, I can detei-mine an overt and voluntary motion of the muscles*, nay, when the play of imagination is very lively, this external movement is actually determined. Thus we frequently see the countenances of persons under the influence of imagination undergo various changes; they gesticulate with their hands, they talk to themselves, and all this is in consequence only of the imagined activity going out into real activity. I should, therefore, be disposed to conclude, that, as in Perception the living organs of sense are from without determined to energy, so in Imagi- nation they are determined to a similar energy by an influence from within. ■H LECTURE XXXIV. • THE ELABORATIVE FACULTY CLASSIFICATION. ABSTRACTION. The faculties with which we have been hitherto engaged, mn^ be regarded as sul)sidiary to that which we The Eiaborative Fac- ^^.^ ^^^^^ .j^^^^^ ^^ Consider. This, to which I ulty, — what and how n i -rt-i ^ • -n i , . ^^^^^ gave the name oi the ll,laborative t acuity, — the Faculty of Relations, — or Comparison, — constitutes what is properly denominated Thought. It supposes always at least two terms, and its act results in a judgment, that is, an affirmation or negation of one of these terms of the other. You will recollect that, when treating of Consciousness in general, I stated to you, that consciousness necessarily Every act of mind i^^.^lvcs a judgment; and as everv act of mind involves a judgment. . „ . * /• • i IS an act of consciousness, every act oi mmd,. consequently, involves a judgment.^ A conscioiasness is necessarily the consciousness of a determinate something ; and we cannot be conscious of anything Avithout virtually affirming its existence, that is, judging it to be. Consciousness is thus primarily a judgment or affirmation of existence. Again, consciousness is not merely the affirmation of naked existence, but the affirmation of a certain qualified or determinate existence. We are conscious that we exist only in and through our consciousness that we exist in this or that particular state, — that we arc so or so affected, — so or so active; an-ogrammf, pp. 31, Df Mntione Animal, c. vi. ['H ^- c sonditions. tually pronounccd, m an act of Perception, of the non-ego, or, in an act of Self-consciousness, '^f the ego. This is the primary affirmation of existence. The notion of existence is one native to the mind. It is the primary condition of thou, — tens, hundreds, thousands, myriads, hundreds ot" thousands, millions, etc., are all so many factitious units which enable us to form notions, vague indeed, of what otherwise we could have obtained no con- ception at all. 80 much for complex or collective notions, formed without decomposition, — a process which I now go on to consider. Our thought, — that is, the sum total of the perceptions and representations which occu2)y us at any given moment, is always, as 1 Degerando, />»,« ■S/>nf.5, vol. i. c. vii. J). 165. 3 Degerando, i><.< Sigiui, vol. i. c. n ij. p 3 See above, lect. xiv. p. 173. — Ed. 165, 165, [slightly abridged. — Ed.] 468 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXI V. I have frequently observed, compound. The composite objects of thoughts may be decomposed in two ways, and Decomposition two- for the suke of two different interests. In the ^, ■ ^ . , first place, we may decompose in order that 1. In the interest of ^ ' . . the Fine Arts. ^^'^ ^^^J reconibine, influenced by the mere ])leasure which this plastic operation afibrds us. This is poetical analysis and synthesis. On this process it is need- less to dwell. It is evidently the w^ork of comparison. For exam- ple, the minotaur, or chima3ra, or centaur, or gryphon (hippogryph), or any other poetical combination of different animals, could only have been effected by an act in which the representations of these animals Avere compared, and in which certain parts of one were affirmed, compatible with certain i>a.rts of another. How, again, is the imagination of all ideal beauty or perfection formed ? Simply by comparing the various beauties or excellencies of which we have had actual experience, and thus being enabled to pronounce in regard to their common and essential quality. In the second place, we may decompose in the interest of science ; and as the poetical decomposition was princi- 2. In the interest of 1 1 i • i t i ^ • j> • ^ i pally accomplished by a separation oi integral I^arts, so this is principally accomj>lished by an abstraction of constituent qualities. On this process it is necessary to be more particular. Suppose an unknown body is presented to my senses, and that it is capable of affecting each of these in a eer- ie ^^^^^ manner. " As furnished with five difl!erent senses. organs, each of which serves to introduce a cer- tain class of perceptions and representations into the mind, we naturally distribute all sensible objects into five species of qualities. The human body, if we may so speak, is thus itself a kind of abstractive machine. The senses cannot but abstract. If the eye did not abstract colors, it would see them confounded with odors and with tastes, and odors and tastes would necessarily become objects of sight." " The abstraction of the senses is thus an operation the most natural ; it is even impossible for us not to perform it. Let us now see whether abstraction by the mind be more arduous than that of the senses."^ We have formerly found that the comprehension of the mind is extremely limited ; that it can only take cognizance of one object at a time, if that be known with full intensity ; and 1 Laromiguiere, [Lemons Philosophie, t. ii. p. Fonseca., Isagoge Philosophica], [civ. p. 7^, B.p- ii. 1. xi. p. 340 Ed.] Condillac, [L'Jrrrfe Psn- pended to his Instiiul. Dialect, (edit 1604)1 «er, p. i. c. viii. Cours, t. iii. p. 295. Ed.] [Cf. Ed.] Lect. XXXIV. METAPHYSICS. 469 that it can accord a simultaneous attention to a very small plurality of objects, and even that imj»eifectly. Thus it is that attention fixed on one object is tantamount to a withdrawal, — to an abstrac- tion, of consciousness from every other. Ab- Abstraction, — what. ... .,. , /> • i -^ straction is thus not a positive act ot mind, as it is often erroneously described in jihilosophical treatises, — it is merely a negation to one or more objects, in consequence of its concentration on another. This being the case. Abstraction is not only an easy ami natural, but a necessary result. "In studying an object, Abstraction,— a nat- ^^,^ neither excit all our faculties at once, nor at ural and necessary pro- ,. . „ , . ^,ggg once apply them to all the qualities oi an object. We know from experience that the effect of such a mode of procedure is confusion. On the contrary, we con- verge our attention on one alone of its qualities, — nay, contemplate this quality only in a single point of view, and retain it in that aspect until we have obtained a full and accurate conception of it. The human mind proceeds from the confused and complex to the distinct and constituent, always separating, always dividing, always simplifying ; and this is the only mode in which, from the weakness of our faculties, we are able to ap^irehend and to represent with correctness." * " It is true, indeed, that after having decomposed everything, we must, as it were, return on our steps b}' recom- synthesis necessary ■ g.-crvthing aiiew ; for uiiless we do so, after analysis. '■ ° ; ® ' our knowledge Avould not be conformable to the reality and relations of nature. The simple qualities of body have not each a proper and independent existence ; the ultimate faculties of mind are not so many distinct and independent existences. On either side, there is a being one and the same; on that side, at once extended, solid, colored, etc. ; on this, at once capable of thought, feeling, desire, etc." " But although all, or the greater number of, our cognitions com- prehend different fasciculi of notions, it is necessary to commence by the acquisition of these notions one by one, through a successive application of our attention to the different attributes of objects. The abstraction of the intellect is thus as natural as that of the senses. It is even imposed upon us by the very constitution of our mind."=^ "I am aware that the expression, ahsfractia/i of the si'fiM'.'^, is incorrect ; for it is the mind always whicli act.s, be it through the 1 Laromigiiiure, J^foni, t. ii. p. 341. — Kd. - Luromiguiere, Lr^ons, t. ii. p. 342. — ED. 470 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXIV. medium of the senses. Tlie impropriety of tlie expression is not, liowever, one which is in danger of leading into The expression, ab- i •. , • ^ ^ ^i • . .. \..^ error; and it serves to pomt out the miportant etraction of the senses. _ -"^ J^ fact, that abstraction is not always performed in the same manner. In Perception, — in the presence of physical objects, the intellect abstracts colors by the eyes, sounds by the ear, etc. In Representation, and when the external object is absent, the mind operates on its reproduced cognitions, and looks at them suc- cessively in their different points of view."^ " However abstraction be performed, the result is notions which are simple, or which approximate to simplicity ; and if we a])ply it with consistency and order to the different quahties of objects, we shall attain at length to a knowledge of these qualities and of their mutual dependencies ; that is, to a knowledge of objects as they really are. In this case, abstraction becomes analysis, which is the method to which we owe all our cognitions."'- The process of abstraction is familiar to the most uncultivated minds ; and its uses are shown equally in the mechanical arts as in the philosophical sciences. " A carpenter," says Kaines,^ speaking of the great utility of abstraction, " considers a log of wood with regard to hardness, firmness, color, and texture; a philosopher, neglecting these properties, makes the log undergo a chemical analysis, and examines its taste, its smell, and component principles; the geometrician confines his reasoning to the figure, the length, breadth, and thickness; in general, every artist, abstracting from all other properties, confines his observations to those which have a more immediate connection with his 2>rofession." But is Abstraction, or rather, is exclusive attention, the work of Comparison ? This is evident. The application Abstraction the work r ^^ 4.- j. i- i i • . ^^. r> ot attention to a particular obiect, or quality of of comparison. _ ' J ' i .' an object, supposes an act of will, — a choice or preference, and this again supposes comparison and judgment. But this may be made more manifest from a view of the act of Generali- zation, on which we are about to enter. The notion of the figijre of the desk before me is an abstract idea, — an idea that makes part of the total Generalization. Idea ^^^^-^^^ ^^ ^^.^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^.j^j^j^ j j^^^^ ^^^_ abstract and individ- ual, centrated my attention, in order to consider it exclusively. This idea is abstract, but it is at the same time individual ; it represents the figure of this particular 1 Laromiguiere, Lr^ems, t. ii. p. 3-14, slightly 3 Elements of Criticism, Appendix, § 4d; vol abridged. — Ed. ii. p. 533, ed. 1788. —Ed. 2 Laromiguiere, Lejon.i, t. ii. p. 345. — Ed. I Lect. XXXIV. METAPHYSICS. 471 desk, ami not the figure of any other body. But had we only indi- vidual aV).stract notions, what would be our knowledge ? We should be cognizant only of" qualities viewed apart from their subjects; (and of separate phaenomena there exists none in nature) ; and as these qualities are also separate from each other, we should have no knowledge of their mutual relations.' It is necessary, therefore, that we should form Abstract General notions. This is done when, comparing a num- Abstract General no- ^^^. ^^ objects, we seize on their resemblances; tions, — what aud how formed. wheu we concentrate our attention on these points of similarity, thus abstracting the mind from a consideration of their differences ; and when we give a name to our )iotion of that circumstance in which they all agree. The general notion is thus one which makes us know a quality, property, power, action, relation ; in short, any point of view, under which we recognize a plurality of objects as a unity. It makes us aware of a quality, a ])oiut of view, common to many things. It is a notion of resemblance ; hence the reason why general names or terms, the signs of general notions, have been called terms qfresetn- hlwice {termini similitt(clinis). In this process of generalization, we do not stop short at a first generalization. By a first gen- eralization we have obtained a number of classes of resemblinir individuals. But these classes we can compare together, observe their similarities, abstract from their differences, and bestow on their common circumstance a common name. On these second •classes Ave can again perform the same operation, and thus ascend- ing the scale of general notions, throwing out of view always a greater number of differences, and seizing always on fewer simi- larities in the formation of our classes, we arrive at length at the limit of our ascent in the notion of being or existence. Thus placed on the summit of the scale of classes, we descend by a process the reverse of that by which we have ascended ; we divide nnd subdivide the classes, by introducing always more and more characters, and laying always fewer difterences aside ; the notions become more and more composite, until we at length arrive at the individual. I may here notice that tliere is a twofold kind of quantity to be consiilered in notions. It is evident, that Twofold quantity in j^^ proportion as the class is high, it will, in notions, — Kxtension i Vc i . . aud c'onipreheusion. ^''^ "'"^^ Jjlacc, contain Under it a greater num- ber of classes, and, in the second, will include the smallest complement of attributes. Thus being or existence 1 We should also be overwhelmed with their number. — Jotting. 472 METAPHYSICS. lect. xxxiv: Their designations. contains under it every class ; and yet when we say that a thing exists, we say the very least of it that is possible. On the other hand, an individual, though it contain nothing but itself, involves the largest amount of predication. For example, when I say, — this is Richard, I not only affirm of the subject every class from existence down to man, but likewise a number of circumstances proper to Richard as an individual. Now, the former of these quantities, the external, is called the Extension of a notion {qucmtitas ambitus) ; the latter, the internal quantity, is called its Cotnprehension or Intension {quan- titas complexus). The extension of a notion is, likewise, styled its circuity region^ domain^ or sphere [sphcera)^ also its breadth (ttXcitos). On the other hand, the comprehension of a notion is, likewise,, called its depth {^dSo<;). These names we owe to the Greek logi- cians.^ The internal and external quantities are in the inverse ratio of each other. The gi-eater the extension, the less the comprehension ; the greater the compre- hension, the less the extension.^ Their law. 1 [See Ammonius, In Categ., f. 33. Gr. f. 29. ovaiav Hoi rh ffwfia Kol rh ffiypvxov Koi rh Lat. Brandis, Scholia in Arise, p. 45.] ('At Cv'"' '^"■^ outcos itn/, Philosophy of Rhetoric, hook n. 0. I. — F.D. 3 Treatise of Human Xature, part i. sect. vii. "J Elements, part ii. 0. Iv. Works, rol. ii. p Works, i. p. 34. Essay on the Academical PhUos- 173. — Ed. fpAy, Works, iv. p. 184. — Ed. 478 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXV No one has stated tlie case of the nominalists more clearly than Bishop Berkeley, and as his whole argument is, The doctrine of ^^ f^^ .^^ j^. irrefragable, I beg your atten- Nominalism as stated . i ^^1 ■ by Berkeley. ^^^^ *^ "16 following extract from his Introduc- tion to the Pi'inciples of Human Knowledge.^ " It is agreed, on all hands, that the qualities or modes of things do never really exist each of them apart by Berkeley quoted. •. i^ i ^ ^ r i, i , itseli, and separated from all others, but are mixed, as it were, and blended together, several in the same object. But we are told, the mind, being able to consider each quality singly, or abstracted from those other qualities with which it is united, does by that means frame to itself abstract ideas. For example, there is perceived by sight an object extended, colored, and moved : this mixed or compound idea the mind resolving into its simple, constituent parts, and viewing each by itself, exclusive of the rest, does frame the abstract ideas of extension, color, and motion. Not that it is possible for color or motion to exist with- out extension ; but only that the mind can frame to itself by ab- straction the idea of color exclusive of extension, and of motion exclusive of both color and extension. " Again, the mind having observed that in the particular exten- sions perceived by sense, there is something common and alike in all, and some other things peculiar, as this or that figure or magni- tude, Avhich distinguish them one from another ; it considers apart or singles out by itself that which is common, making thereof a most abstract idea of extension, which is neither line, surface, nor solid, nor has any figure or magnitude, but is an idea entirely prescinded from all these. So likewise the mind, by leaving out of the particular colors perceived by sense, that which distin- guishes them one from another, and retaining that only which is common to all, makes an idea of color in abstract which is neither red, nor blue, nor white, nor any other determinate color. And in like manner, by considering motion abstractedly not only from the body moved, but likewise from the figure it describes, and all particular directions and velocities, the abstract idea of motion is framed ; which equally corresponds to all particular motions what- soever that may be perceived by sense. "Whether others have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their ideas, they best can tell : for myself I find, indeed, I have a faculty of imagining, or representing to myself the ideas of those particular things I have perceived, and of Anriously compounding 1 Sections vii. viii. x. Workx, i. 5 et seq., 4to edit. Cf. Encyclopedia Britannioa, art Metaphysics, vol. xiv. p. 622, 7th edit. — Ed. Lect. XXXV. METAPHYSICS. 479 and dividing them. I can imagine a man with two heads, or the upper parts of a man joined to the body of a horse. I can con- sider the liand, the eye, tlie nose, each by itself abstracted or sepa- rated from the rest of the body. But then whatever liand or eye I imagine, it must have some particuhir shape and color. Likewise the idea of man that I frame to myself, must be either of a wliite, or a black, or a tawny, a straight or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized man. I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above described. And it is equally impossible for me to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving, and which is neither swift nor slow, curvilinear nor recti- linear; and the like may be said of all other abstract general ideas whatsoever. ^ To be plain, I own myself able to abstract in one sense, as when I consider some particular parts or qualities sep- arated from others, with which though they are united in some object, yet it is possible they may really exist without them. But I deny that I can abstract one from another, or conceive separately, those qualities which it is impossible should exist so separated : or that I can frame a general notion by abstracting from particulars in the manner aforesaid. Which two last are the proper accep- tations of abstraction. And there are grounds to think most men will acknowledge themselves to be in my case. The generality of men, which are simple and illiterate, never pretend to abstract notions. It is said thev are difficult, and not to be attained with- out pains and study. We may therefore reasonably conclude that^ if such there be, they are confined only to the learned." Such is the doctrine of Nominalism, as asserted by Berkeley, and as subsequently acquiesced in by the principal philosophers of this country. Reid himself is, indeed, liardly an exception, for his opinion on this point is, to say the least of it, extremely vague.'' The counter-opinion, that of Conceptualism, as it is called, has, however, been supported by several ]»hiloso- conceptuaiism. ,^^^.^ ^^ distiniruished ability. Locke main- Locke. ' " 1 • 1 tains the doctrine in its most revolting ab- surdity, boldly admitting that the general notion must he realized, in si)ite of tlie principle of Contradiction. ''Does it not require,'* he says, "some pains and skill to form the general idea of a tri- angle (which is yet none of the most abstract, comprehensive, and difficult), for it must be neither obliijue or rectangle, neither equi- lateral, equicrural, nor scalenon ; but all and none of these .it once. 1 This ur-uni(Mitation is employed by Dero- 2 For Rcid's opiuiou, see iMdUctual Potmert, don, Logico [pars ii. c. vi. § IC. Opera, p 236. essay v., chap. ii. and vi. - Ed- ~-Ed.], and others. 480 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXV. In effect, it is something imperfect, that cannot exist ; an idea wherein some parts of several different and inconsistent ideas are put together."^ This doctrine was, however, too palpably absurd to obtain any advocates ; and conceptualism, could it not find a firmer basis, be- hoved to be abandoned. Passing over Dr. Reid's speculations on the question, which are, as I have said, wavering and ambiguous, I solicit your attention to the principal statement and defence of tion or conception of two or more Brown quoted. n i i • /» t n i • objects ; secondly, the relative leeling oi their resemblance in certain respects ; thirdly, the designation of these circumstances of resemblance, by an appropriate name, — the doc- trine of the Nominalists, which includes only two of these stages, — the perception of particular objects, and the invention of general terms, must be false, as excluding that relative suggestion of resemblance in certain respects, which is the second and most important step of the process ; since it is this intermediate feeling alone that leads to the use of the term, which otherwise it would be impossible to limit to any set of objects. Accordingly, we found that, in their impossibility of accounting, on their own prin- ■ciples, for this limitation, which it is yet absolutely necessary to explain in some manner or other, — the Nominalists, to explain it, uniformly take for granted the existence of those very general notions, which they at the same time jJi'ofess to deny, — that, while they affirm that we have no notion of a kind, species, or sort, inde- pendently of the general terms which denote them, they speak of our application of such terms only to objects of the same kind, species, or sort ; as if we truly had some notions of these general circumstances of agreement to direct us, — and that they are thus very far from being Nominalists in tlie spirit of their argument, at the very moment when they are Nominalists in assertion, — strenu- ous opposers of those very general feelings, of the truth of which they avail themselves, in their very endeavor to dis^^rove them. " If, indeed, it were the name which formed the class, and not that previous relative feeling, or general notion of resemblance of some sort, which the name denotes, then might anything be classed with anything, and classed with equal propriety. All which would be necessary, would be merely to apply the same name uniformly to the same objects; and, if we were careful to do this, John and a triangle might as well be classed together, under the name man, 1 See above, p. 477, note 1 — Ed. Lect. XXXV. METAPHYSICS. 481 as John and William. Why does the one of those arrangements appear to us more philosophic than the other? It is because some- thing more is felt by us to be necessary in classification, than the mere giving of a name at random. There is, in the relative suo-- gestion that arises on our very perception or conception of objects, when we consider them together, a reason for giving the generic name to one set of objects rather than to another, — the name of man, for instance, to John and William, rather than to John and a triangle. This reason is the feeling of the resemblance of the objects which we class, — that general notion of the relation of similarity in certain respects, which is signified by the general term, — and without which relative suggestion, as a previous state of the mind, the general term would as little have been invented, as the names of John and William would have been invented, if there had been no perception of any individual being whatever to be denoted by them."^ This part of Dr. Brown's philosophy has obtained the most unmeasured encomium; it has been lauded as the most important step ever made in the philosophy of mind ; and as far as I am aware, no one has as yet made any attempt at refutation. I regret that in this, as in many other principal points of his doctrine, I find it imjiossible not to dissent from Dr. Brown. An adequate refu- tation of his views would, indeed, require a more elaborate criti- cism than I am at present able to afford them ; but I trust that the following hasty observations will be sufficient to evince, that the doctrine of Nominalism is not yet overthrown. Dr. Brown has taken especial care that his theory of general, ization should not be misunderstood ; for the lirown'8 doctrine ^ ^^ • • ,i ^i ^ r> • • i .,. . , lollowmcr is the seventh, out oi nine recapitula> criticized. '^ ' ' tions, he has given us of it in his forty-sixth and forty-seventh Lectures. " If then the generalizing process be, first, the perception or conception of two or more objects ; secv ondly, the relative feeling of their resemblance in certain respects ; thirdly, the designation of these circumstances of resemblance by an appropriate name, the doctrine of the Nominalists, which in- cludes only two of these sfages, — the perception of j)articu]ar objects, and the invention of general terms, — must be false, as excludinir that relative suhicu.t. p. 110 (edit. 1G32) — Phil, p 53. (edit. Itw2 ) — Eb] 486 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXV. resemblance," be found neither in the resembling objects, nor in the qualities through which they are similar, we must look for it in the feeling of resemblance itself, apart from its actual realization; and this in opposition to the third axiom we laid down as self-evident. In these circumstances, we have certainly a right to expect that Dr. BroAvn should have brought us cogent proof for an assertion so con- trary to all apparent evidence, that although this be the question which perhaps has been more ably, keenly, and universally agitated than any other, still no philosopher before himself was found even to imagine such a possibility. But in proof of this new paradox. Dr. Brown has not only brought no evidence ; he does not even attempt to bring any. He assumes and he asserts, but he hazards no argument. In this state of matters, it is perhaps sujierfluous to do more than to rebut assertion by assertion ; and as Dr. Brown is not in possessorio, and as his opinion is even opposed to the uni- versal consent of philosophers, the counter assertion, if not over- turned by reasoning, must prevail. But let us endeavor to conceive on what grounds it could jiossibly be supposed by Dr. Brown, that the feeling of Possible grounds of resemblance between certain objects, through Brown's supposition ,• ■, ■,. ,.^. , ... ,. ^ that the feeling of re- ^ertam reseuiblmg qualities, has in it anything of semblance is universal. Universal, or Can, as he says, constitute the gen- eral notion. This to me is indeed not easy; and every hypothesis I can make is so absurd, that it appears almost a libel to attribute it, even by conjecture, to so ingenious and acute a thinker. In the first place, can it be supposed that Dr. Brown believed that a feeling of resemblance between objects in a First. ... '' certain quality or respect was general because it was a relation ? Then must every notion of a relation be a general notioq ; which neither he nor any other philosopher ever asserts. In the second place, does he suppose that there is anything in the feeling or notion of the particular relation called Second. . '- . , . , . srm.i/ariti/, which is more general than the feel- ing or notion of any other relation V This can hardly be conceived. What is a feeling or notion of resemblance ? Merely this ; two objects affect us in a certain manner, and we are conscious that they affect us in the same way that a single object does, when presented at different times to our perception. In either case, we judge that the affections of which we are conscious are similar or the' same. There is nothing general in this consciousness, or in this judgment. At all events, the relation recognized between the consciousness of similarity produced on us by two different eggs, is not more general Lect. XXXV. METAPHYSICS. 487 than the feeling of similarity produced on us by the successive pre- sentation of the same e^s:. If the one is to be called jjeneral, so is the other. Again, if the feeling or notion of resemblance be made general, so must the feeling or notion of difference. They are absolutely the same notion, only in different a])plications. You know the logical axiom, — the science of contraries is one. Wo know the like only as we know tlie unlike. Every aihrmation of similarity is virtually an affirmation that difference does not exist; every affirmation of difference is virtually an affirmation that sim- ilarity is not to be found. But neither Brown nor any other ])hi- losopher has pretended, that the apprehension of difference is either general, or a ground of generalization. On the contrary, the appre- hension of difference is the negation of generalization, and a descent from the universal to the particular. But if the notion or feeling of the dissimilarity is not general, neither is the feeling or notion of the similarity. In the tliird place, can it be that Dr. Brown supposes the partic- ular feeling or consciousness of similarity be- tween certain objects in certani respects to be genera], because we have, in general, a capacity of feeling or being conscious of similarity ? This conjecture is equally improbable. On this ground every act of every power would be general ; and we should not be obliged to leave Imatrination, in order to seek for the universality which we cannot discover in the light and definitude of that faculty, in the obscurity and vagueness of another. In the fourth i)lace, only one other supposition remains ; and this may perhaps enable us to explain the possibility of Dr. Brown's hallucination. A relation cannot be represented in Imagination. The two terms, the two relative objects, can be severally imaged in the sensible phantasy, but not the relation itself This is the object of the Comj^arative F^^culty, or of Intelligence Proper. To objects so different as the images of sense and the unpicturable notions of intelligence, different names ought to be given ; anects, is general. This, tlie very foundation of hitf theory, is not self-cvidently true ; — on the contrary, it stands ob- trusively, sclf-evidently, false. It was |iriiiiarily iiuMunbent on Dr. Brown to )»rove the reality of tliis li:isis. I5ul he makes not even an attempt at this. He assumes all that is in <.juestioii. To the t;2 490 METAPHYSICS Lect. XXXVl noun-substantive, "feeling of resemblance," he prefixes the adjeC' tive, "general;" but he does not condescend to evince that the verbal collocations have any real connection. But, in the second place, as it is not proved by Dr. Brown, that our notion of the similarity of certain things in certain respects is general, so it can easily be shown against him that it is not. The generality cannot be found in the relation of resemblance, apart from all resembling objects, and all circumstances of resem- blance; for a resemblance only exists, and is only conceived, as between determinate objects, and in determinate attributes.^ This is not denied by Dr. Brown. On the contrary, he arrogates gen- ■erality to what he calls the "feeling of similarity of certain objects in certain respects." These are the expressions he usually employs. So far, therefore, all is manifest, all is admitted ; a resemblance is only conceived, is only conceivable, as between particular objects, in particular qualities. Apart from these, resemblance is not as- serted to be thinkable. This being understood, it is apparent, that the notion of the resemblance of certain objects in a certain attri- bute, is just the notion of that attribute itself; and if it be impossi- ble, as Brown admits, to conceive that attribute generally, in other words, to have a general notion of it, it is impossible to have a gen- eral notion of the resemblance Avhich it constitutes. For example, we have a perception oi- imagination of two figures resembling each other, in having three angles. Xow here it is admitted, that if either the figures themselves be removed, or the attribute belonging to each (of three angles) be thrown out of account, the notion of any resemblance is annihilated. It is also admitted, that the notion of re- semblance is realized through the notion of triangularity. In this all philosophers are at one. All likewise agree that the notion of similarity, and the notion of generality, are the same ; though Brown, as we have seen, has misrepresented the doctrine of Nom- inalism on this point. But though all maintain that things are conceived similar only as conceived similar in some quality, and that their similarity in this quality alone constitutes them into a class, they diifer in regard to their ulterior explanation. Let us suppose that, of our two figures, the one is a rectangled, and the other an equilateral, triangle ; and let us hear, on this simple ex- ample, how the different theorists explain themselves. The nom- inalists say, — you can imagine a rectangular triangle alone, and an equilateral triangle alone, or you can imagine both at once ; and, «n this case, in the consciousness of their similarity, you may view 1 If generality in relation of resemblance then only one general notion at all. — Mar' •part from particular objects and qualities, ginai Jotting. Lect. XXXVI. METAPHYSICS. 491 either as the inadequate representative of both. But you c:annot imagine a figure which shall adequately represent botli qua tri- angle ; that is, you cannot imagine a triangle which is neither an equilateral nor a rectangjed triangle, and yet both at once. And as on our (the nominalist) doctrine, the similarity is only embodied in an individual notion, having relation to another, there is no general notion properly speaking at all. The older Conceptualists, on the other hand, assert that it i.* possible to conceive a triangle neither equilateral nor rectangular, — but both at once. Dr. Brown diiFers from nominalists and older conceptualists ; he coincides with the nominalists in rejecting as absurd the hypothesis of the conceptualists, but he coincides with the conceptualists in holding, that there is a general notion ade- quate to the term triangle. This general notion he does not, however, jilace, with the conce])tualist, in any general represen- tation of the attribute triangle, but in the notion or feeling of re- semblance between the individual representations of an equilateral and of a rectangled triangle. This opinion is, however, untenable. In the first place, there is here no generalization ; for Avhat is called the common notion can only be realized in thought through notions of all the several objects which are to be classified. Thus, in our example, the notion of the similarity of the two figures, in be- ing each triangular, suj>]»oses the actual perception or imagina- tion of both together. Take out of actual perception, or actual representation, one or both of the. triangles, and no similarity, that is, no general notion remains. Thus, u]»on Dr. Brown's doctrine, the general notion onlv exists in so far as the individual notions, from Avhich it is generalized, are ])resent, that is, in so far as there is no generalization at all. This is because resemblance is a relation ; but a relation suj>poses two particular objects; and a relation between ])arti(nilar olijects is just as particular as the objects themselves. But let us consider his doctrine in anotlicr ])oint of view. In the example we have taken of the equilateral and i-.nm-,,-. .i,.ctrim- of rectangular tiiimgles, triangularity is an attri- ppi.enil notions, — lui- \ ' . ... tlRT considered. ''"^*' "^ .'acli, and III each tlu' conceived trian- gularity is a particular, not a general, notion. Now the reseml>lanc(> between these figures lies in their trian- gularity, and the notion or feeling of resemblance in wliich Dr. Brown places the geneiality, must be a notion or feeling of tri- angularity. — triangularity must constitute tlieir resenibl.inee. This is manifest. For if it Ix' not a TU)tion of triangularity, it must be a notion of something el.se, and if a notion of something else, it cannot be a general notion of two figures as triangles. The 492 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXX YI. notion of resemblance between the figures in question must, there- fore, be a notion of triangularity. Now the triangularity thus con- ceived must be one notion, — one triangularity; for otherwise it could not be (what is sup})osed) one common or general notion, but a l)Iurality of notions. Again, this one triangularity must not be the triangularity, either of the equilateral triangle, or of the rectangular triangle alone ; for, in that case, it would not be a general notion, — a notion common to both. But if it cannot be the triangularity of either, it must be the triangularity of both. Of such a triangu- larity, hoAvever, it is impossible to form a notion, as Dr. Bro-svn admits ; for triangularity must be either rectangular or not rec- tangular ; but as these are contradictory or exclusive attributes, Ave cannot conceive them together in the same notion, nor can we form a notion of triangularity except as the one or the other. This being the case, the notion or feeling of similarity between the two triangles cannot be a notion or feeling of triangularity at all. But if it be not this, what can it otherwise possibly be ? There is only one conceivable alternative. As a general notion, contain- ing under it particular notions, it must be given up, but it may be regarded as a particular relation between the particular figures,, and which supposes them to be represented, as the condition of being itself not represented, but conceived. And thus, by a dif- ferent route, Ave arrive again at the same conclusion, — that Dr. BroAvn has mistaken a j^articular, an individual, relation for a gen- eral notion. He clearly saAV that all that is picturable in imagi- nation, is determinate and individual; he, therefoi-e, avoided the absurdity involved in the doctrine of the old conceptualists ; but he was not warranted (if this were, indeed, the ground of his as- sumption) in assuming, that because a notion cannot be jaictured in imagination, it is, therefore, general. Instead of recapitulating Avhat I stated in opposition to Dr. Bi-oAvn's vicAvs in my last Lecture, I have been led into a new line of argument; for, in fict, his doctrine is open to so many objec- tions that, on what side soever Ave regard it, ai-gument Avill not be Avanting for its refutation. So far, thei'efore, from Nominalism be- ing confuted by BroAvn, it is i)lain that, apart from the miscon- ception he has committed, he is himself a nominalist. „, ,. I proceed noAv to a A'ery curious question, Ine question, — _ ' _ . •' ^ i _ Does Language origi- Avhich has likcAvisc divided philosophers. It is nate in General Appei- this, — Docs Language Originate in General Ap- latives or by Proper peHativcs, or by Proper Names? Did mankind Names, — considered. ; . • ^ , •■ i in the formation of language, and do children in their first applications of it, commence Avith the one kind of words Lect. XXXVI. METAPHYSICS. 493 or with tlie other? The determination of this question,. — the question of the Primum CognUum, as it was called in the schools, is not involved in the doctrine of Nominalism. Many illustrious philosophers have maintained that all terms, as at first employed, are expressive of individual objects, and that these only subse- quently obtain a general accei>tation. This opinion I find maintained by Vives,^ Locke,^ Rousseau,' Con dillac,'' Adam Smith,'' Strinbart,*' Tittel,^ Brown,^ 1. That all terms, and others.^ "The order of learning" (I trans- fts first employed, ex- ^^Xe from Vivcs) " is from the senses to the pressive of individual . . . , „ ^^i- . ^i • . n ^ \^. . ■ ^ . A imaerination, and irom this to the intellect, — objects, — maintaiued * ' J fcy Vives and others. such is the order of life and of nature. We thus proceed from the simple to the complex, from the singular to the universal. This is to be observed in chil- dren who first of all express the several parts of diflEerent things, and then conjoin them. Things general they call by a singular name ; for instance, they call all smiths by the name of that individual smith whom they have first known, and all meats, heef or 2^ork^ as they have happened to have heard the one or the other first, when they begin to speak. Thereafter the mind collects universals from ])articulars, and then again reverts to particulars from universals." The same doctrine, without j^robably any knowledge of Vives, is maintained by Locke.^" " There is nothing more evident than that the ideas of the persons chil- dren converse with (to instance in them alone), are like the persons themselves, only particular. The ideas of the nurse and the mother ar.' well framed in their minds; and, like pictures of them there, represent only those individuals. The names they first gave to them are confineil to these individuals; and the names of nurse and nuimma, the child uses, determine themselves to those persons. Afterwards, when time and a larger acquaintance have made them observe that there are a great many other things in the world, that in some common agreements of shape, and several other qualities, resemble their father and mother, and those persons they have been Tised to, tlicy fi-ame an idea which they find those many ]iarticulai-s do partake in ; and to that they give, with others, the name >;<«», 1 De Anima, lib. ii. De Dixcenrh tinlione, <' [Anlfituiu; clfS Versian/les, ^ 45. Cf. } P3-80.; Op€ra, vol. ii p. 530, Kasilea", 1556. — Ed. 7 [Erlduterungeri der Philo.iophie.] [Logilc, y. 2 See below, p. 494. — Ed. 214, et seq. (edit. 179.3). — Ed.] 3 [.See Toussuint, Dc la Pensef, c. x. p. 278— « See below, p. 494. — Ed. 79.] Dhcours sur rOrie;ine rie VInegalild parmi- 9 Cf. Toletus, 7;i Phy^i. Arint.Mh. i.e. i. t. .'*. ks Hnmmc.f, (Eitvrfs, t.i. j). 268, ed. 1826. — Ed. q. 5, f 106. Couimbricense.-*, Ibid. lib. i. c. 4 See below, p. 494. — Ed. q. 3, art 2, p. 79; and q. 4, art. 2, p. 89. — Ei» fi See below, \). 494. — Ed W Esiay. iii. 3, 7. — Ed 494 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVI for example. And thus they come to have a general name, and a general idea." The same doctrine is advanced in mariy places of his works by Condillac.^ Adam Smith has, however, the ° ' **'■ merit of havine applied this theory to the for- Adam Smith. . r> i i ./ raation of language ; and his doctrine, which Dr. Brown,^ absolutely, and Mr. Stewart,^ with some qualification, adopts, is too important not to be fully stated. Brown. Stewart. , . , . ^ r. , -, rr,, and in his own poweriui language: — " Ihe assignation," says Smith,"* " of particular names, to denote particular objects, — that is, the institution of nouns sub- Smith quoted. . , i i i n ■, n stantive, would probably be one of the first steps towards the formation of language. Two savages, who had never been taught to speak, but had been bred up remote from the socie- ties of men, would naturally begin to form that language by which they would endeavor to make their mutual wants intelligible to each other, by uttering certain sounds whenever they meant to de- note certain objects. Those objects only which were most familiar to them, and which they had most frequent occasion to mention, would have particular names assigned to them. The particular cave whose covering sheltered them from the weather, the particular tree whose fruit relieved their hunger, the particular fountain whose water allayed their thirst, would first be denominated by the words, cave, tree, fountain, or by whatever other appellations they might think proper, in that primitive jargon, to mark them. Afterwards, when the more enlarged experience of these savages had led them to observe, and their necessary occasions obliged them to make mention of other caves, and other trees, and other fountains, they would naturally bestow upon each of those new objects the same name by which they had been accustomed to express the similar object they were first acquainted with. The new objects had none of them any name of its own, but each of them exactly resembled another object, which had such an appellation. It was impossible that those savages could behold the new objects, without recol- lecting the old ones; and the name of the old ones, to which the new bore so close a resemblance. When they had occasion, there- fore, to mention or to ]ioint out to each other any of the new ob- jects, they would naturally utter the name of the correspondent old one, of wdiich the idea could not fail, at that instant, to present 1 See Origine des Connoissances Humaines, ii. p. 159. Cf. Elements, vol. ii. part. ii. c. ii. part i. sect. iv. c. i sect, v.; part ii. sect. ii. c. $ 4. Works, p. 173. — Ed. ix. — Ed. 4 Considerations cancer .ng the First FoTfa- 2 Lecture xlvii. p. 306 (edit. 1830). tion of Languages, appended to Theory of Mord S i^kments, vol. i. part ii. C. iv. Works, vol. Sentiments. — Ed. Lect. XXXVI. METAPHYSICS. 495 itself to their memory in tlic strongest and liveliest manner. And thus those words, which were originally the proj^er names of indi- viduals, would each of them insensibly become the common name of a multitude. A child that is just learning to speak, calls every person who comes to the house its papa, or its mamma ; and thus bestows upon the whole species those names which it had been taught to ap})ly to two individuals. I have known a clown who did not know the proper name of the river which ran by his own door. It was the river, he said, and he never heard any other name for it. His experience, it seems, had not led him to observe any other river. The general word ricer, therefore, was, it is evident, in his accept- ance of it, a proper name signifying an individual object. If this person had been carried to another river, would he not readily have called it a river? Could we suppose a person living on the banks of the Thames so ignorant as not to know the general word rivery but to be acquainted only with the particular word Thames^ if he was brought to any other river, would he not readily call it a Thames? This, in reality, is no more than what they wlio are well acquainted with the general word are very apt to do. An English- man, describing any great river which he may have seen in some foreign country, naturally says, that it is another Thames. The Spaniards, when they first arrived upon the coast of iNIexico, and observed the wealth, ])opulousness, and habitations of tliat fine country, so much superior to the savage nations Avhich they had been visiting for some time before, cried out that it was another Spain. Hence, it was called New Spain ; and this name has stuck to that unfortunate country ever since. We say, in the same manner, of a hero, that he is an Alexander; of an orator, that he is a Cicero; of a philost)pIier, that he is a Newton. This way of speaking, which the grammarians call :m .Vntonomasia, and which is still extremely comuKin, tliongli now not at all necessary, demonstrates how much all mankind aii' naturally disposed to give to one object the name of any other which nearly resembles it; and thus, to denominate a multitude bv what originallv was intended to exiiress an imlividual. " It is this ajiplicatiou of the name of an individual to a great mul- titude of objects, whose resemblance naturally recalls the idea of tliat individual, ami of the name which expresses it, that seems orig- inally to have given occasion to the formation of those classes and assortments which, in the schools, are called genera and specks!''' On the other hand, an opposite doctrine is -maintained by many profound philosophers. A large section of the schoolmen ' embraced 1 Cf Conimbriceiisi's, In Phys. Arisi. 1 1. c Toletus, Ibid., 1. 1, c 1, text 3 et uq. i. 10a. J. ^ ■, -r •^ • mg^ It IS not miprobable that Leibnitz may have Campanella. taken a hint of his own doctrine on the subject. Leibnitz. j^ his great work, the JVbuveaux Essais, of which Stewart was not till very latterly aware, he says, ^ that, " general terms serve not only for the perfection of languages, ^ .^ . , but are even necessary for their essential con- Leibnitz quoted. . , . stitution. For if by particulars be understood things individual, it would be impossible to speak, if there were only proper names, and no appellatives, that is to say, if there were only names for things individual, since, at every moment we are met by new ones, when we treat of persons, of accidents, and espec- ially of actions, which are tnose that we describe the most ; but if by particulars be meant the lowest species {sjyecies infimas), besides that it is frequently very difficult to determine them, it is manifest that these are already universals, founded on similarity. Now, as the only difference o^ species and genera lies in a similarity of greater or less extent, it is natural to note every kind of similarity or agree- ment, and, consequently, to employ general terms of every degree ; nay, the most general being less complex with regard to the essences which they comprehend, although more extensive in relation to the things individual to which they aj^ply, are frequently the easiest to form, and are the most useful. It is likewise seen that children, and those who know but little of the language which they attempt to speak, or little of the subject on which they would employ it, make use of general terms, as thing, plant, animal, instead of using proper names, of which they are destitute. And it is certain that all projyer or individual names have been originally appellative or general." In illustration of this latter most important doctrine, he, in a subsequent part of the work, says : ^ " I Avould add, in conform- ity to what I have previously observed, that proper names have been originally appellative, that is to say, general in their origin, as Brutus, Cffisar, Augustus, Capito, Lentulus, Piso, Cicero, Elbe, Rhine, Rhur, Leine, Ocker, Bucephalus, Alps, Pyrenees, etc.," and, after illustrating this in detail, he concludes : — " Thus I would make bold to affirm that almost all words have been originally gen- eral terms, because it would happen very rarely that men would invent a name, expressly and without a reason, to denote this or 1 [SeeTennemann, Geschichteder Philosophie, 2 Lib. iii. c. i. p. 297 (Erdmann). — Ed. vol )x. p. 334.] 3 Lib. iii. c. iii. p. 303 (Erdmann). — Ed. II Lect. xxxvl metaphysics. 497 thiit individual. We may, tlierefore, assert that the names of indi, vidual things were names of species, which were given par excellence^ or otherwise, to some individual, as the name Great Head to hira of the whole town who had the largest, or who was the man of most consideration, of the Great Pleads known. It is thus likewise that men give the names of genera to species, that is to say, that they content themselves with a term more general or vague to denote more particular classes, when they do not care about the differences. As, for example, we content ourselves with the gen- eral name absinthium (wormwood), although there are so many species of the plant that one of the Bauhins has filled a whole book with them." That this was likewise the opinion of the great Turgot, we learn from his biographer. "M. Turgot," says Con- dorcet, ^ " believed that the opinion was wrong, which held that in general the mind only acquired general or ab- stract ideas by the comparison of more particular ideas. On the contrary, our first ideas are very general, for, seeing at first only a small number of qualities, our idea includes all the existences to which these qualities are common. As we acquire knowledge, our ideas become more particular, without ever reaching the last limit; and, what might have deceived the metaphysicians, it is precisely by this process that we learn that these ideas are more general than we had at first supposed." Here are two opposite opinions, each having nearly equal author- ity in its favor, maintained on both sides with equal ability and apparent evidence. Either doctrine would be held established were we unacquainted with the arguments in favor of the other. But I have now to state to you a third opinion, intermediate be- tween these, which conciliates both, and seems, 3. A third or inter- moreover, to carry a superior probability in its mediate opinion main- statement. This Opinion maintains, that as our tained,-ti.at language k^o^ie.isre proceeds from the confused to the ftt first expresses only o i i i • the vague and con- distinct, — from the vague to the determinate, fused. — so, in the mouths of chiMren, language at first expresses neither the precisely general nor the determinately individual, but the vague and confused ; and that, out of this the universal is elaborated by generification, the partic- ular and singular by specification and individualization. I formerly explained why I view the doctrine held by Mr. Stewart and others in regard to perception in general and vision in partio- i {Vie lie M. Turgot, Londres, ITSU. p. 2U.] 63 498 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVI ular, as erroneous ; inasmuch as they conceive that our sensible cog- nitions are formed by the addition of an ahnost That perception com- infinite number of separate and consecutive mences with masses, ^ . ■ i i • already shown. ^^^^ ^^ attentive perception, each act being cog- nizant of a certain minimum sensibile. ^ On the contrary, I showed that, instead of commencing with minima, per- ception commences with masses ; that, though our capacity of atten- tion be very limited in regard to the number of objects on which a faculty can be simultaneously directed, yet that these objects may be large or small. We may make, for example, a single object of attention either of a whole man, or of his face, or of his eye, or of the ]>upil of his eye, or of a speck upon the pupil. To each of these objects there can only be a certain amount of attentive perception apj^lied, and Ave can concentrate it all on any one. In proportion as the object is larger and more comjjlex, our attention can of course be less applied to any part of it, and consequently, our knowledge of it in detail Avill be vaguer and more imperfect. But having first acquired a com2:)rehensive knowledge of it as a whole, we can descend to its several parts, consider these both in themselves, and in relation to each other, and to the whole of which they are constituents, and thus attain to a complete and articulate knowledge of the object. We decompose, and then Ave recompose. But in this we always proceed first by decomposition or analysis. All analysis indeed supposes a foregone composi- The mind in eiabo- tion or syiitliesis, becausc we cannot decompose rating its knowledge, ^^.j^.^^. j^ ^^^ alrcadv couiposite. But in our ac- proceeds by analysis, . " from the whole to the quisition of knowledge, the objects are presented parts. to US Compounded ; and they obtain a unity only in the unity of our consciousness. The unity of consciousness is, as it were, the frame in which objects are seen. I say, then, that the first procedure of mind in the elaboration of its knowledge is always analytical. It descends from the whole to the parts, — from the vague to the definite. Definitude, that is, a knowledge of minute differences, is not, as the opposite theory supposes, the first, but the last, term of our cog- lllustrated. ••-!-, i t nitions. Between two sheej) an ordinary spec- tator can probably apprehend no difference, and if they were twice presented to him, he would be unable to discriminate the one from, the other. But a shepherd can distinguish every individual sheep ; and why? Because he has descended from the vague knowledge which we all have of sheep, — from the vague knowledge whicb 1 See above, lect. xiii. p. 168. — Ed. Lect. XXXVI. METAPHYSICS. 499 makes every sheep, as it were, only a repetition of the same undif- ferenced unit, — to a definite knowledge of qualities by which each is contrasted from its neighbor. Now, in this example, we appre- hend the sheep by marks not less individual than those by which the shepherd discriminates them ; but the whole of each sheep being made an object, the marks by which we know it are the same in each and all, and cannot, therefore, afford the principle by which we can discriminate them from each other. Now this is what appears to me to take [dace with children. They first know, — they first cognize, the things and persons presented to them as wholes. liut wholes of the same kind, if we do not descend to their parts, afford us no difference, — no mark by which we can dis- criminate the one from the other. Children, thus, originally per- ceiving similar objects, — persons, for example, — only as wholes, do at first hardly distinguish them. They apprehend first the more obtrusive marks that separate species from species, and, in conse- quence of the notorious contrast, of dress, men from women ; but they do not as yet recognize the finer traits that discriminate indi- vidual from individual. But, though thus apprehending individuals only by what we now call their specific or their generic qualities, it is not to be supposed that children know them by any al)stract general attributes, that is, by attributes formed by comparison and attention. On the other hand, because their knowledge is not gen- eral, it is not to be supposed to be particular or individual, if by particular be meant a separation of species from species, and by individual the separation of individual from individual; for children are at first apt to confound individuals together, not only in name but in reality. " A child who has been taught to say papa, in jioint- ing to his father, will give at first, as Locke [and Aristotle befove him] had remarked, the name of p( (pa to all the men whom he sees.' As he only at first seizes on the more striking appearances of objects, they would appear to him all similar, and he denotes them by the same names. But when it luis been pointed out to liim that he is mistaken, or when he has discovered this by the con- sequences of his language, he studies to discriminate the objects which he had confounded, and he takes hold of their diftl-rences. The child commences, like the savage, by employing only isolated words in place of j^hrases ; he commences by taking verbs and nouns only in their absolute state. But as these imperfect attempts at speech express at once many and very different things, an'>'oposition. "In discourse, the parts of a proposition are not always found placed in logical order ; but to discover and dis- ow e pa s o a criminate them, it is only requisite to ask — proposition are to be . . . . discriminated. What is the thing of whicli something else i» affirmed or denied ? The answer to this ques- tion will point out the subject ; and we shall find the pi-edicate if we inquire, — What is affirmed or denied of the matter of which we speak ? " A proposition is sometimes so enounced that each of its teima may be considered as subject and as ])redicate. Thus, when we say, — Death is the wages of sin ; we may regard sin as the subject of which we predicate death, as one of its consequences, and we may likewise view death as the subject of which we predicate sin, as the origin. In these cases, we must consider the general tenor of the discourse, and determine from the context what is the matter of which it principally treats." "In fine, when we judge we must have, in the first place, at least 1 Crousaz, [Logiqut, torn. iii. part ii. c. i. pp. 178, 181 — Ed.] Lect. XXXVII. METAPHYSICS. 505 two notions ; in the second place, we compare these ; in the third, we recognize that the one contains or excludes What Judgment in- ^^e Other ; and, in the fourth, we acquiesce in vol V6S> this recognition."^ Simple Comparison or Judgment is conversant with two notions, the one of which is contained in the other. But easoning,— w a . .^ ^ften happens that one notion is contained in another not immediately, but mediately, and we may be able to recognize the relation of these to each other only through a third,. which, as it immediately contains the one, is immediately contained in the other. Take the notions, A, B, C. — A contains B ; B contains C ; — A, therefore, also contains C. But as, ex Jiypothesi, we do not at once and directly know C as contained in A, we cannot immediately compare them together, and judge of their relation. We, therefore, perform a double or complex process of comparison ; we compare B with A> and C with B, and then C Avith A, through B. We say B is a part of A ; C is a part of B ; therefore, C is a part of A. This double act of comparison has obtained the name of Reasoning ; the term Judgment being left to express the simple act of comparison, or rather its result. If this distinction between Judgment and Reasoning were merely a verbal ditference to discriminate the simpler and more complex act of comparison, no objection could be raised to it on the score of propriety, and its convenience would fully warrant its establish- ment. But this distinction has not always been meant to express nothing more. It has, in fact, been generally supposed to mark out two distinct liiculties. Reasoning is either froni the whole to its parts ; or from all the parts, discretively, to the whole they constitute,, Keasoning.-Dcduc- ^.^Hectivcly. The former of these is Deductive ; live and Inductive. ' • t t • t-» • mi tlie latter is Inductive Keasonmg. 1 he state- ment you will find, in all logical books, of reasonings from certain parts to the whole, or fn^n certain parts to cer- Deductive Reason- tain parts, is erroiioous. I shall tirst sjieak of the ing, — its axiom. Two reasoning from till' \vlu)le to its parts, — or of the pha..es of Deductive D^.J^^.ti;,. InlbrcncC. ed by two kinds oi 1°' ^^ IS self-evident, that whatever is the part whole and parts. of a part, is a part of the whole. This one ax- iom is the foundation of all reasoning from the whole to the parts. There are, however, two kinds of whole and J Crousaz, [Logit/ur t. iii. v- "■ c i. pp. 181, IRiI — Ed ] 506 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVU parts ; and these constitute two varieties, or rather two phases, of deductive reasoning. This distinction, which is of the most impor- tant kind, has nevertheless been wholly overlooked by logicians, in consequence of which the utmost perplexity and confusion have been introduced into the science. I have foiTOerly stated that a proposition consists of two terms, — the one called subject, the other predicate; Subject or predicate the subject being that of which some attribute may be considered -^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ predicate being the attribute so said. severally as whole and . t^ . as part. Now, m different relations, we may regard the subject as the whole, and the predicate as its part, or the predicate as the whole and the subject as its part. Let us take the proposition, — milk is xohite. Now, here we may either consider the predicate vTdte as one of a Illustrated. , ^ -i , , number or attributes, the whole complement of which constitutes the subject w^^7X^•. In this point of view, the predicate is a part of the subject. Oi-, again, we may consider the predicate xohite as the name of a class of objects, of which the sub- ject is one. In this point of view, the subject is a part of the predicate. You will remember the distinction, which I formerly stated, of the twofold quantity of notions or terms. The Comprehension. Breadth or Extension of a notion or term con-e- Extension of notions, -\ ^ ,^ . ■, ^ •. . as applied to Reason- ^P.*'"^^^ *« ^^^^ greater number of subjects con- ing, tained under a predicate ; the DejDth, Intension, or Comprehension of a notion or term, to the greater number of predicates contained in a subject. These quan- tities or Avholes are always in the inverse ratio of each other. Now, it is singular, that logicians should have taken this distinction be- tween notions, and yet not have thought of applying it to reasoning. Biit so it is, and this is not the only oversight they have committed in the application of the very primary principles of their science. The great distinction we have established between the subject and predicate considered severally, as, in different relations, Avhole and as part, constitutes the primary and principal division of Syllogisms, both Deductive and Inductive ; and its introduction wipes off a complex mass of rules and qualifications, which the want of it rendered necessary. I can of course, at present, only explain in general the nature of this distinction ; its details belong to the science of the Laws of Thought, or Logic, of which we are not here to treat. I shall first consider the process of that Deductive Inference in which the subject is viewed as the whole, the predicate as the pan. Lect. xxxyii. metaphysics. 507 In this reasoning, the whole is determined by the Comprehension, and is, again, either a Physical or Essential whole, or 1. Deductive Rea- an Integral or Mathematical whole, ^ A Phys- .oning in the whole of ^^^^ ^j. Essential whole is that which consists of Comprehension, — in . , which the subject is "^^ ^'^^^^Y Separable parts, of or pertaming to viewc-.] as tiie whole, its substunce. Tlius, man is made up of two tiie predicate as the substantial parts, — a mind and a body ; and part. This whole ei- ^ i^ ^i ^ • • ^• ^- i • i, \ , . . , „ , each 01 these has again various quauties, which; ttier Physical or Matli- ^ ^ _ ematicai. ' though separable only by mental abstraction, are considered as so many parts of an essential Avhole. Thus the attributes of i-espiration, of digestion, of locomo- tion, of color, are so many parts of the whole notion we have of the human body ; cognition, feeling, desire, virtue, vice, etc., so many parts of the whole notion we have of the human mind ; and all these together, so many parts of the whole notion we have of man. A Mathematical, or Integral, or Quantitative whole, is that which has part out of part, and which, therefore, can be really partitioned. The Integral or, as it ought to be called. Integrate whole {totum integratum)^ is composed of integrant parts {partem integrantes)^ which are either homogeneous, or heterogeneous. An example of the former is given in the division of a square into two triangles ; of the latter, of the animal body into head, trunk, extremities, etc. These wholes (and there are others of less importance which I omit) are varieties of that whole which we may call a Comprehen- sive, or Meta]»hysical ; it might be called a Natural whole. Tills being understood, let us consider how we proceed when we reason from the i-elation between a compre- Canon of Deductive hciisive Avholc and its parts. Here, as I have reasoning in the whole ^^. ^^^^ subicct is the whok', the predicate itS of I'oniprehension. '' t i i part ; in other words, the predicate belongs to tlu' subject. Now, here it is evident, that all the parts of the predicate must also be parts of the subject; in other terms, all that belongs to the predicate must also belong to the subject. In the Avords of the scholastic adage, — Nota notai eat nota rei ipKias ; PredicMtnm prccUcati est precUcatutn subjecti. An example of this reasoning : Europe contains England ; EnalaiKl contains 3liddlesex ; Therefore, Europe contains ^Middlesex. 1 See Engeniofi, [\oyiK\\, c. iv. pp. IW, stltnt. I.ngir.rr., 1. i. c. xir. i>. 53 tt sef. edit »8 (1740). — Kl> ] [Cf. IJurt'ersdyck, In- Vm.\ 508 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVIL In other words, England is an integrant part of Europe ; Middlesex IS an integrant part of England ; therefore, Middlesex is an inte- grant part of Europe. This is an example from a mathematical whole and parts. Again : Socrates is Just (thnt is, Socrates contains justice as a quality) ; Justice is a A^irtue (that is, justice contains virtue as a constituent part) ; Therefore, Socrates is virtuous. In other words; — justice is an attribute or essential part of Socra- tes; virtue is an attribute or essential part of justice; therefore, virtue is an attribute or essential part of Socrates. This is an example from a physical or essential whole and parts. What I have now said Avill be enough to show, in general, what I mean by a deductive reasoning, in which the subject is the whole, the predicate the part. I 2iroceed, in the second place, to the other kind of Deductive Reasoning, — that in which the subject is the 2. Deductive Kea- it ■ -, , , r.,, . soning in the wi.oie of V^^'^^ the predicate IS tlie whole. This reasoning Extension— in which proceeds Under that species of whole which has the subject is viewed been called the Logical or Potential or Univer- a^ e par , le pre i- ^^^j^ Tlus wliole is determined bv the Extension cate as the whole _ ♦' of a notion ; the genern having species, and the species individuals, as their ])arts. Thus animal is a universal whole, of which bird and beast, are immediate, ea(/le and sparrowy dog and horse, mediate, parts ; while man, which, in relation to ani- mal, is a part, is a whole in relation to Peter, Paul, Socrates, etc. The parts of a logical or universal whole, I should notice, are called the subject parts. From what you now know of the nature of generalization, vou are aware that general terms are terms expressive of attributes which may be predicated of many dijfferent objects; and inasmuch as these objects resemble each other in the common attribute, they are considered by us as constituting a class. Thus, when I say, that a horse is a quadru])ed ; Bucephalus is a horse ; therefore, Bucepha- lus is a quadruped; — I viitually say, — horse the subject is a part of the predicate quadruped, Buceplialus the subject is part of the predicate horse; therefore, JBucej)halus the subject, is part of the predicate quadruped. In the reasoning under this whole, you avIU observe that the same word, as it is whole or part, changes from predicate to subject ; horse, when viewed as a part of quadrujjed, being the subject of the proposition ; whereas when viewed as a whole, containing Jiucephalus, it becomes the })redicate. Such is a general view of the process of Deductive Reasoning Lkct. XXXVII. METAPHYSICS. 509 under the two great varieties determined by the two different kinds of whole and parts. I now proceed to the coun- inductive Reasoning, ter-process, — that of Inductive Reasoning. The deductive is founded on the axiom, that what is part of the part, is also })art of the containing whole ; the inductive on the principle, that what is true of every constituent ])art belongs, or does not belong, to the constituted whole. Induction, like deduction, may be divided into two kinds, accord- ing as the whole and parts about which it is Of two kinds, as it conversant, are a Comprehensive or Physical oi proceeds in the whole ^,^^^^^^^^ ^j. ^^ Extcnsivc or Logical, whole. of Coiniirehension or of Extension. Thus, m the former : Gold is a metal, yellow, ductile, fusible in uqua reffia, of a certain specific gravity, and so on ; These qualities constitute this body (are all its parts) ; Therefore, this body is gold. In the latter; — Ox, horse, dog, etc., are animals, — that is, are contained under the class animal ; Ox, horse, dog, etc., constitute (are all the constituents of) the class quadruped ; Therefore, quadruped is contained under ar.imal. Both in the deductive and inductive processes the inference must be of an absolute necessity, in so far as the men- Deductive and In- ^.j iHatioii is concerned ; that is, every conse- tiuctive illation must ^^^^^^ proposition must bc evolvcd out of every be of an absolute ne- ^ t. . . ..... ., antecedent proposition with intuitive evidence. I do not mean by this, that the antecedent should be necessarily true, or that the consequent be really contained in it ; it is sufficient that the antecedent be assumed as true, and tliat the consequent be, in conformity to the laws of thought, evolved out of it as its part or its equation. This last is called Logical or F'ormal or Subjective trutli ; and an inference may be subjectively or formally true, which is objectively or really false. The account given of induction in all works Account of in.iuc- ^^^ Lofjic is Utterly erroneous. Sometimes we tion by Logicians, er- ^i,"^./. i-ii • » find this inference described as a precarious, not roufous. a necessary reasoning. It is called an iUation from some to all. But here the some, as it neitlier contains nor constitutes the all, determines no necessary movement, and a con- clusion drawn under these circumstances is logically vicious. Others again describe the inductive process thus : What belongs to some objects of a class belongs to tlie whole class ; 510 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVII. This property belongs to some objects of the class ; Therefore, it belongs to the whole class. This account of induction, which is the one you will find in all the English works on Logic, is not an inductive reasoning at all. It is, logically considered, a deductive syllogism ; and, logically con- sidered, a syllogism radically vicious. It is logically vicious to say, that, because some individuals of a class have certain common qualities apart from that property which constitutes the class itself, therefore the whole individuals of the class should partake in these qualities. For this there is no logical reason, — no necessity of thought. The jirobability of this inference, and it is only probable, is founded on the observation of the analogy of nature, and, there- fore, not upon the laws of thought, by which alone reasoning, con- sidered as a logical process, is exclusively governed. To become a formally legitimate induction, the objective probability must be clothed with a subjective necessity, and the some must be translated into the all which it is supposed to represent. In the deductive syllogism we proceed by analysis, — that is, by decomposing a whole into its parts ; but as the In Extension and ^^^q wholes with which reasoning is conversant Comprehension, the • xi • a- ^ i ^i are m the inverse i-atio of each other, so our analysis of the one corresponds to the analysis in the one will correspond to. our syn- synthesis of the other. thcsis in the Other. For example, when I divide a whole of extension into its parts, — when I divide a genus into the species, a species into the individuals, it contains, — I do so by adding new differences, and thus go on accu- mulating in the parts a complement of qualities which did not belong to the wholes. This, therefore, wliich, in point of extension, is an analysis, is, in point of comprehension, a synthesis. In like manner, when I decompose a whole of comprehension, that is, de- compose a complex predicate into its constituent attributes, I obtain by this process a simpler and more general quality, and thus this, which, in relation to a comprehensive whole, is an analysis, is, ia relation to an extensive whole, a synthesis. As the deductive inference is Analytic, the inductive is Syn- thetic. But as induction, equally as deduction, is conversant with both wholes, so the Synthesis of induction on the comprehensive whole is a reversed process to its synthesis on the extensive whole.. From what I have now stated, you will, there- confnsion among f ^^ ^^^ ^-^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ analysis and syn- philosophers from not i • ^ • baving observed this. thesis, when used without qualification, may be employed, at cross purposes, to denote opera- tions precisely the converse of each other. And so it has happened* Lect. XXXVn. METAPHYSICS. 511 Analysis, in the mouth of one set of philosophers, means precisely what synthesis denotes in the mouth of another; nay, what is even still more frequent, these words are perpetually converted with each other by the same philosopher. I may notice, what has rarely, if ever, been remarked, that si/nt/iesis in the writings of the Greek logicians is equivalent to the analysis of modern philosophers : the former, regarding the extensive whole as the principal, applied analysis, Kar i$oxr)v, to its division;^ the latter, viewing the compre- hensive whole as the principal, in general limit analysis to its decomposition. This, however, has been overlooked, and a con- fusion the most inextricable prevails in regard to the use of these words, if the thread to the labyrinth is not obtained. 1 Thus the Platonic method of Division is In Post Analyt. 1. ii. c. xii. t. 70, Opera Logxm, •ailed Analytical. See Laertius, ii. 24 Com- p. 1190, and t. 81, p. 1212.] pare Discussions, p 178. — £d. [C& Zabarella, LECTURE XXXVIII. THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. I NOW enter upon the last of the Cognitive Faculties, — the faculty which I denominated the Regulative. The Regulative Fac- Here the term faculty^ you will observe, is *^^' ,. . , employed in a somewhat peculiar signification, Peculiarity of sense ^■••11 in which the term Fac- lor it IS employed not to denote the proximate uity is here employed. causc of any definite energy, but the power the mind has of being the native source of certain necessary or a priori cognitions; which cognitions, as they are the conditions, the forms, under which our knowledge in general is pos- sible, constitute so many fundamental laws of intellectual nature. It is in this sense that I call the power which the mind possesses of modifying the knowledge it receives, in conformity to its proper nature, its Regulative Faculty. The Regulative Faculty is, how- ever, in fact, nothing more than the complement of such laws, — it is the locus principiorum. It thus corresponds to what was known in the Greek philosophy under the name Designations of the of voCs, when that term was rigorously used. To Eeguiative Faculty.- ^^jg foculty has been latterly applied the name NoCs, Reason. _ ^ ^ • •' 1 1 Common Sense, -its -Heason ; but this term IS so vague and ambigu- Tarious meanings. ous, that it is aliiiost Unfitted to convey any definite meaning. The term Common Sense has hkewise been applied to designate the place of principles. This ■word is also ambiguous. In the first place, it was the expression used in the Aristotelic philosophy to denote the Central or Com- mon Sensory, in which the different external senses met and were united.^ In the second place, it was employed to signify a sound understanding applied to vulgar objects, in contrast to a scientific or speculative intelligence, and it is in this signification that it has been taken by those who have derided the principle on which the philosophy, which has been distinctively denominated the Scottish, 1 Se« De Anima, iii. 2, 7. Cf. in he. eit. Conimbricenses, pp. 373, 407 —Ed. Lkct. XXXVm. METAPHYSICS. 513 professes to be established. This is not, liowever, the meaning which has always or even principally been attached to it ; and an incomparably stronger case might be made out in defence of this expression than has been done by Reid, or even Authorities for the y^y ]\£j._ Stcwart. It is in fact a term of high Use of the term Com- ^- -^ -i i ^ ^- inr antiquity, and very general acceptation. We Uion flense as eqiiiva- i .' ' jo i lenttoNoCs. find it in Cicero/ in several passages not hith- erto observed. It is found in the meaning in question in Phsedrns,^ and not in the signification of community of sentiment, which it expresses in Horace^ and Juvenal.'' "Natura," says Tertullian,^ speaking of the universal consent of mankind to the immortality of the soul, — "Natura pleracpie suggeruntur quasi de jxiblico tiensti, quo animam Deus dotare dignatus est." And in the same meaning the term /Sensus Communis is employed by St. Augustin.® In modern times it is to be found in the philosophi- cal writings of every country of Europe. In Latin it is used by the German Melanchthon,'^ Victorinus,^ Keckermannus,* Christian Thomasius,'^ Leibnitz," Wolf,'^ and the Dutch De Raei,** — by the Gallo-Portuguese Antonius Goveanus," the Spanish Nunnesius,'* the Italian Genovesi,'" and Yico,'' and by the Scottish Aber- cromby;'" in P^-ench by Balzac,'* Chanet,^ Pascal,^' Malebranche," Bouhours, Barbcyrac;® in English by Sir Thomas Browne,^* To. land,^ Charleton.^ These are only a few of the testimonies I coukl adduce in support of the term Common Sense for the faculty in question ; in fact, so far as use and wont may be allowed to weigli, there is perhaps no philosophical expression in su]>port of which a more numermis array of authorities may be alleged. The expres- 1 See Reid's Works, p. 774. —Ed. " See Reid's Works, p. 779. 2 L. i. f. 7. — Ed. 15 P>id. — Ed. 3 Sir. i. 3, 66. 15ut see Reid^s Works, p. 774. IC Ihid.. p 790.— Ed. — Ed. 1" /6i(/. — Ed. 4 Sal. viii. 73.— Ed. 18 Ibid., p. 78.0. —Ed. « See ReitVs Works, p. 776. — Ed. 19 Ibid., p. 782. — Ed. 6 Ibid , p. 776 —Ed. 20 Ibid. — V.v. ' Ibid., p. 778. — Ed. 21 p,id., p. 783. — Ed. 8 [Victoriiii Strigclii, Hijpomnemata in Dia- 5!2 Ibid., p 784. — Ed. Uct. Mflnnchtlwnis, pp. 798, 1040, ed. 1566.] 23 Dts Droits de la Puissance Souveraine, Re. 9 See Raid's Works, p. 780. — Ed. eveil de Di.'!cours, t. i. pp 36, 37. A translation Ki Ptid., p. 785. — Ed. from the Latin of Noodt, in wliich wens snna 11 See Rfids Works, p 785. — Ed. and smsus couitininis are both rendered by /« 1- Ibid., p 790. — Ed. sens couniiiin. — Ed. 13 SeeC/rtfM Philosopliirt Nnturalis Aristotelico- 2* See Rcirf's Works, p. 782. — E». Carttsiann, Dissert, i. Tte Cnanitione Vuleari et 25 Ibid., p. 745. — Ed. Philosnp/iica. p. 7 " Communis facultas om- -''• Cliarleton use.s the term in its Aristote. nium hominum." Dis.scrt. ii. De Prirmsni- Han sijinifioation, as denotiiic the central or tt,^ in GoiT/-, H iv. V. pp. 34. .^^. "Communes common sensory and its function. Soe his Notiones ; " } x. p. 41. " Communis Sensus." Immorlalitt/ of the Human Soul demonstrated by _ Ed. • »«' Light of Nature ( 1657), pp. 32, 98, 158. — Ep-. 65 514 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVIII. sion, liowever, is certainly exceptionable, and it can only claiin toleration in the absence of a better. I may notice that Pascal and Ilemsterhuis^ have applied Intui- tion and Sentiment in this sense; and Jacobi^ originally employed Glaube {Helief or Faith)., in the same way, though ho latterly superseded this expression by that of Yernunft {lieason). Were it allowed in metaphysical philosophy, as in physical, to discriminate scientific differences by scientific Noetic and Diano- . -^ i i i . i i , • t , , , terms, 1 would employ the word noetic^ as de- etic, — now to be em- ' -^ •' _ _ ployed. rived from vous, to express all those cognitions Nomenclature of the that originate in the mind itself, dianoetic to cognitions due to the -^^^^^^ ^j^^ operations of the Discursive, Elabo- Regulative Faculty. ^ • t^ i ci rative, or Comparative t acuity. So much for the nomenclature of the faculty itself. On the other hand, the cognitions themselves, of which it is the source, have obtained various appellations. They have been denominated Koivat 7rpoAT^i//€t5, Kowal IwoLat, (f>vcnKai eWoiai, Trpoirai fvvoiaL, Trpwra vorjixara ; nctturce Judicia, Judicia coinmunibus homi- nuni se7isihus injixa^ notiones or notitica connatm or innatoe., semina scientice, semina om^nimn cognitionum, semina ceternitatis, zopyra {living sparks), prcecognita necessaria, anticipationes ; first princi- ples, common anticipations, principles of common sense, self -evident or intuitive truths, primitive notions, native notions, innate cog- nitions, natural hnoicledges (^cognitions), fundamental reasons,, metaphysiccd or transcendentcd truths, ultimate or elemental laics of thought, primary or fundamental laws of human belief, ov pri- mary laics of human 7-eason, pure or transcendentcd or a priori cognitions, categories of thought, natural beliefs, rationed instincts, etc., etc.® The history of opinions touching the acceptation, or rejection, of such native notions, is, in a manner, the history Importance of the dis- ^f philosophy: for as the one alternative, or Ihe tiuction of native and ., . i ^ j • ^.i • x* ii i *„_ other, is adopted in this question, the character adventitious knowl- ' ^ '■ edge. of a system is determined. At present I con- tent myself with stating that, though from the earliest period of philosophy, the doctrine was always common, if not always predominant, that our knowledge originated, in part at least, in the mind, yet it was only at a very recent date that the criterion was explicitly enounced, by which the native may be dis- criminated from the adventitious elements of knowledge. Without touching on some ambiguous expressions in more ancient philoso- 1 See Reid's Works, p. 792. — Ed. 3 See RdiVs Works, note A, § v. p. 755 et stq 3 Rid., p. 793. — Ed. — Ed. Lkct. XXXVIII. METAPHYSICS. 515 pters, it is sufficient to say tluit the character of universality and necessity, as the quality by which the two Criterion of neces- classes of knowledge are distinguished, was first city Hi-st enounced by explicitly proclaimed by Leibnitz. It is true, ^i'!r"tny anticipated indeed, that, previously to him, Descartes all by Descartes. but cnounccd it. In the notes of Descartes on the Programma of 1647 (which you will find under Letter XCIX. of the First Part of his J^pistolce), in arguing against the author who would derive all our knowledge from obser- vation or tradition, he has the following sentence : " I wish that our author would inform me what is that corporeal motion which is able to form in our intellect any common notion, — for example, things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other, or any other of the same kind ; for all those motions are particular, but these notions are universal, having no affinity with motions, and holding no relation to them." Now, had he only added the term necessary to universal, he would have completely anticipated Leib- nitz. I have already frequently had occasion incidentally to notice, that we should carefully distinguish between those notions or cognitions which are pi'imitive facts, and those notions or cognitions which are generalized or derivative facts. The former are given us ; they are not, indeed, obtrusive, — they are not even cognizal>le of themselves. They lie hid in the profundities of the mind, until drawn from their obscurity by the mental activity itself employed upon the materials of experience. Hence it is, that our knowledge has its commencement in sense, external or internal, but its origin in intellect. ".Cotrnitio omnis a sensibus exordium, a mente urigi- neiu liabet primum."'''' Tlie latter, the derivative cognitions, are of oui- own fabrication ; wc form them after certain rules ; they are the tardy result of Perception and Memory, of Attention, Reflection, Abstraction. The jirimitive cognitions, on the contrary, seem to leap ready armed from the womb of reason, like Pallas from the head of Jupiter; sometimes the mind places them at the commence- ment of its operations, in order to have a point of support and a fixed basis, without which the operations would bo im|i<)ssil)k' ; sometimes they form, in a certain sort, tlie crowning, — ihc consum- mation, of all the intellectual operations. The derivative or gener- alized notions are an artifice of intellect, — an ingenious mean of giving order and compactness to the materials of our knowledge. The primitive and general notions are the root of all principles. — the foundation of the whole edifice of human science. But how diflferent soever be the two classes of our cognitions, and however y See above, lect. xxi. p. 286. — Ed. ''^16 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVIIT. distinctly separated they may be by the circumstance, — that we cannot but think the one, and can easily annihilate the other in thought, — this discriminative quality was not explicitly signalized till done by Leibnitz. The older philosophers are at best unde- veloped. Descartes made the first step towards a more perspicuous and definite discrimination. He frequently enounces that our primi- tive notions (besides being clear and distinct) are universal. But this universality is only a derived circumstance; — a notion is universal (meaning thereby that a notion is common to all man- kind), because it is necessary to the thinking mind, — because the mind cannot but think it. Spinoza, in one pas- And by Spinoza. . _, _, J^ , t „ , sage ot his treatise JJe Ji,mendati07ie Intellectus^ says: "The ideas which we fiarm clear and distinct, appear so to follow from the sole necessity of our nature, that they seem abso- lutely to depend from our sole power [of thought] ; the confused ideas on the contrary," etc. This is anything but explicit ; and, as I said, Leibnitz is the first by whom the criterion of necessity, — of the impossibility not to think so and so, — was established as a dis- criminative type of our native notions, in contrast to those which we educe from experience, and build up through generalization. The enouncement of this criterion was, in fact, a great discovery in the science of mind; and the fact that a truth The enouncemeut of so manifest, when once proclaimed, could have this criterion, a great j^^j^^ ^^ j^^^ unnoticed bv philosophers, may step in the science of \ . . " i i > . jnind. warrant us in hoping that other discoveries of equal importance may still be awaiting the advent of another Leibnitz. Leibnitz has, in several parts of his works, laid down the distinction in question ; and, wliat is curious, almost always in relation to Locke. In the fifth volume of his works by Dutens, ^ in an Epistle to Bierling of 1710, he says, (I translate from the Latin) : — "In Locke there are some particu- lars not ill expounded, but upon the whole he has wandered far from the gate, ^ nor has he understood the nature of the intellect (natura mentis). Had he sufficiently considered the dilFerence between necessary truths or those apprehended by demonstration, and those which become known to us by induction alone, — he would have seen that those which are necessary, could only be approved to us by principles native to the mind (menti insitis) ; seeing that the senses indeed inform us what may take place, but not what necessarily takes place. Locke has not observed, that the notions of being, of sub- 1 Opera Posthuma, p. 391. 3 This refers to Aristotle's Metaphysics [A 2 P. a58. minor, c. i. —Ed.] Lect. XXXVIII. METAPHYSICS. 517 stance, of one and the same, of the true, of the good, and many others, are innate to our mind, because our mind is innate to itself, and finds all these in its own furniture. It is true, indeed, that there is nothing in the intellect which was not previously in the sense, — except the intellect itself " lie makes a similar observation in reference to Locke, in Letter XL, to his friend Mr. Burnet of Kern- nay. ^ And in his JVouveaiix J^ssais (a detailed refutation of Locke's Essay, and not contained in the collected edition of his works by Dutens), he repeatedly enforces the same doctrine. In one place he says,- — "Hence there arises another Leibnitz further . . • n , ,i i ^ question, viz. : Are all trutlis dependent on experience, that is to say, on induction and ex- amples? Or are there some which have another foundation? For if some events can be foreseen before all trial has been made, it is manifest that we contribute something on our part. The senses, although necessary for all our actual cognitions, are not, however, competent to afford us all that cognitions involve ; for the senses never give us more than examples, that is to say, particular or indi- vidual truths. Now all the examples, which confirm a general truth, how numerous soever they may be, are insufficient to estab- lish the universal necessity of this same truth ; for it does not fol- low, that what has happened will hai)j)en always in like manner. For example : the Greeks and Romans and other nations have always observed that during the course of twenty-four hours, day is changed into night, and night into day. But we should be wrong, were we to believe that the same rule holds everywhere, as the contrary has been observed during a residence in Nova Zembla. And he again would deceive himself, who should believe that, in our latitudes at least, this was a truth necessary and eternal ; for we ought to consider, that the earth and the sun themselves have no necessary existence, and that there will perhaps a time arrive when this fair star will, with its whole system, have no longer a j)]ace in creation, — at least under its present form. Hence it appears, that the necessary truths, such as we find them in Pure Mathematics, and particularly in Arithmetic and Geometry, behoove to have prin- ciples the proof of which does not depend u])on examples, and, consequently, not on the evidence of sense ; howbeit, that without the senses, we should never have found occasion to call them into consciousness. This is what it is necessary to distinguish accurately, and it is what Euclid has so Avell understood, in demonstrating by reason what is sufficiently ai)j)arent by experience and sensible 1 Optra, vol. vi. p. 274 (edit. Duteni). 2 Avant-propos, p. 5 (edit. Raspe). 518 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVIIL images. Logic, likewise, with Metaphysics and Morals, tlic one of which constitutes Natural Theology, the other Natural Jurispru- dence, are full of such trutiis ; and, consequently, their proof can only be derived from internal principles, which we call innate. It is true, that we ought not to imagine that we can read in the soul, these eternal laws of reason, ad aperturam Hbri, as we can read the edict of the Prastor without trouble or research ; but it is enousrh, that we can discover them in ourselves by dint of attention, when the occasions are presented to us by the senses. The success of the observation serves to confirm reason, in the same way as proofs serve in Arithmetic to obviate erroneous calculations, when the computa- tion is long. It is hereby, also, that the cognitions of men differ from those of beasts. The beasts are purely empirical, and only regulate themselves by examples; for as far as we can judge, they never attain to the formation of necessary judgments, whereas, men are capable of demonstrative sciences, and herein the faculty Avhich brutes possess of drawing inferences is inferior to the reason which is in men." And, after some other observations, he jiroceeds: "Perhaps our able autlior" (he refers to Locke) "will not be wholly alien from my opinion. For after having employed the whole of his first book to refute innate cognitions, taken in a certain sense, he, however, avoAvs at the commencement of the second and after- wards, that ideas which have not their origin in Sensation, come from Reflection. Now reflection is nothing else than an attention to what is in use, and the senses do not inform us of what we already carry with us. This being the case, can it be denied that there is much that is innate in our mind, seeing that we are as it were innate to ourselves, and that there are in us existence, unity, sub- stance, duration, change, action, perception, pleasure, and a thousand other objects of our intellectual notions? These same objects being immediate, and always present to our understanding (although they are not always pei'ceived by reason of our distractions and our wants), why should it be a matter of wonder, if we say that these ideas are innate in us, with all that is dependent on them ? In illustration of this, let me make use likewise of the simile of a block of marble which has veins, rather than of a block of marble wholly uniform, or of blank tablets, that is to say, what is called a tabula rasa by philosophers ; for if the mind resembled these blank tablets, truths would be in us, as the figure of Hercules is in a jiiece of mar- ble, when the marble is altogether indiflJerent to the reception of this figure or of any other. But if we suppose that there are veins in the stone, which would mark out the figure of Hercules by preference to other figures, this stone would be more determined Lkct. XXXVIII. META.PIIYSrCS. 519 thereunto, aiul Hercules would exist there, innately in a certain sort ; although it would require labor to discover the veins, and to clear them hy polishing and the removal of all that prevents their manifestation. It is thus that ideas and truths are innate in us ; like our inclinations, disi)Ositions, natural habitudes or virtualities, and not as actions ; although these virtualities be always accom- panied by some corres]>ouding actions, frequently however unper- ceived. "It seems that our able author [Locke] maintains, that there is nothing virtual in us, and even nothing of which we are [not] always actually conscious. But this cannot be strictly intended, for in that case his opinion would be paradoxical, since even our acquired hal)its and the stores of our memory are not always in actual consciousness, nay, do not always come to our aid when wanted ; Avhile again, we often call them to mind on any trilling occasion Avhich suggests them to our remembrance, like as it only requires us to be given the commencement of a song to lielp us to the recollection of the rest. He, therefore, limits his thesis in other places, saying that there is at least nothing in us which we have not, at some time or other, ac([uired by experience anon some in preference to others. You see, therefore, these \cvy able philosophers, who are of a ditlerent opinion, have not sufficiently reflected on the consequence of the difference that subsists between necessary or eternal truths and the truths of experient-e, as I have already observed, and as all our contestation shows. The original proof of necessary truths comes from the intellect alone, while other truths are derived from experience or the obstr\ ations of sense. Our mind is competent to both kinds of knowledge, biit it is itself the source of tlie former; and how great soever maybe the iiuinb.r of particular experiences in sui»port of a universal truth, we sliouKl never be able to assure ourselves forever of its universality by indue 1 Nouieaux E$saif, p. 30 (edit. Kanpo). [L. i. i 5. — Ed.] r)20 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVUI. tion, unless we knew its necessity by reason The senses may register, justify, and confirm these truths, but not dem- onstrate their infallibility and eternal certainty." And in speaking of the faculty of such truths, he says: "It is not a naked faculty, which consists in the mere possibility of under- standing them ; it is a disposition, an a])titude, a preformation, which determines our mind to elicit, and which causes that they can be elicited ; precisely as there is a difference between the figures which are bestowed indifferently on stone or marble, and those which veins mark out or are disposed to mark out, if the sculptor avail himself of the indications."^ I have quoted these passages from Leibnitz,, not only for their own great importance, as the first full and explicit enouncement, and certainly not the least able illustrations, of one of the most momentous principles in philosopliy ; but, likewise,, because the Nouveaux Essais^ from which they are i)rincii)ally extracted, though of all others the most important psychological work of Leibnitz, was wholly unknown, not only to the other phi- losophers of this country, but even to Mr. Stewart, prior to the last years of his life.'* We have thus seen that Leibnitz was the first philosopher who explicitly established the quality of necessity as Reid discriminated the criterion of distinction between empirical native from adventi- ^j^^^ ^ priori cognitions. I may, however, re- lous now g mark, what is creditable to Dr. Reid's sagacilv, the same diflerence, ' .... independently of Leib- that he founded the Same discrimination on the nitz. same difference : and I am disposed to think, that he did this without being aware of his coin- cidence with Leibnitz ; for he does not seem to have studied the system of that philosopher in his OAvn woi-ks; and it was not till Kant had shown the imi)ortance of the criterion, by its application in his hands, that the attention of the learned was called to the scattered notices of it in the writings of Leibnitz. In speaking of the principle of causality. Dr. Reid says : " We are next to consider whether we may not leam this truth from experience, — That effects which have all the marks and tokens of design, must proceed from a designing cause." " I apprehend that we cannot leam this truth Reid quoted. . „ from experience, tor two reasons. "Eirst, Because it is a necessary truth, not a contingent one. It 1 Nour. Essais, 1. i. § 11. See above, lect. edition of the works of Leibnitz by Dutens. xxix p. 404. — Ed. In consequence of its republication in Leib- 2 The reason of this was, that it was not nitzii Opera Philosophica, by Erdmann, it is published till long after the death of its au- now easily procured. thor, and it is not included in the collected Lect. XXXVIII. METAPHYSICS. 521 agrees witli the experience of mankind since the beginning of the world, that the area of a triangle is equal to half the rectunglo under its base and perpendicular. It agrees no less with experience, that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. So far as experience foes, these truths are upon an equal footing. But every man per- ceives this distinction between them, — that the first is a necessary truth, and that it is impossible that it should not be true; but the^ last is not necessary, but contingent, depending upon the will of Him Avho made the world. As avc cannot learn from exj)erience that twice three mi;st necessarily make six, so neither can we learn from experience that certain effects must proceed from a designing and intelligent cause. Experience informs lis only of what has been, but never of Avhat must be."'^ Anter Ed. of this Essay. J.KCT. XXXVIII. METAPHYSICS. 523 Uut though it be now generally acknowledged, by the profoundest thinkers, that it is impossible to analyze all out rhiiosophers divid- knowledge into the produce of experience, ex- ed in regard to what ternal or internal, and that a certain complement cognitions ought to be ^f cognitions must be allowed as having their classed as ultimate, » .... and what as modifica- Origin in the nature of the thinking principle tions of the ultimate. itsclf; they are not at one in regard to those which ouQ-ht to be recounized as ultimate and elemental, and those which ought to be regarded as modifications or combinations of these. Reid and Stewart, Reid and Stewart (the foi'mer in particular), have been considered have been censured .^g ^qq gj^gy [■^^ their admission of primary laws; for their too easy ad- , ., ^ , ,, i ,i . .i „ . , . and It must be allowed that the censure, in some mission of first priu- _ ' cipies. instances, is not altogether unmerited. But it ought to be recollected, that those who thus agree in repi-ehension are not in unison in regard to the grounds of where we can trace it no fiuther, and secure the grountl wt- have gained, there is no haiin done ; a quicker eye may in time trace it further."- Tlie same view h:is been likewise well stated by Mr. Stewart.'^ "In all the other sciences, the Stewart quoted to .^ .^^^ ^,f .lisoovcrv has been gradual, fi-om the the same effect i r^ . " i <» less ireneral to the more general laws of nature ; and it would be singul.tr indeed, if, in this science, which but a few 1 /niyuiM/, chap. vi. 5 13, H'ortv p Hv? — En. 3 Phllnsnphlrnl Essnyx, Trcl. Diiw.C. i. Works. a Inquiry into the Human Minri, c. i. § 2. vol v. p 13 Cf. FJcmrnif, vol. i. C v. p. 2, i Works, p. 99. — Ed. 4. Works, vol ii. pp 342, 348. — Ed. o2-± METAPHYSICS Lect. XXXVIU years ago was confessedly in its infancy, and which certainly labors under many disadvantages peculiar to itself, a step should all at once be made to a single princi2>le, comprehending all the particular phaenomena which we know. As the order established in the intel- lectual world seems to be regulated by laws analogous to those vvhich wc trace among the ph.'vnomena of the material system ; and as in all our philosophic-il inquiries (to whatever subject they may \-elate) the progress of tliC mmd is liable to be affected by the same tendency to a premature generalization, the following extract from an eminent chemical writer may contribute to illustrate the scope and to confirm the justness of some of the foregoing reflections. ' Within the last fifteen or twenty years, several new metals and new earths have been made known to the world. The names that support these discoveries are respectable, and the experiments de- cisive. If we do not give our assent to them, no single proposition in chemistry can for a moment stand. But whether all these are really sim])le substances, or compounds not yet resolved into their elements, is what the authors themselves cannot possibly assert; nor would it, in the least, diminish the merit of their observations, if future ex})eriments should prove them to have been mistaken, as. to the simplicity of these substances. This remark should not be confined to later discoveries; it may as justly be applied to those earths and metals with which we have been long acquainted.' ' In the dark ages of chemistry, the object was to rival nature ; and the substance which the adepts of those days were busied to create, was universally allowed to be simple. In a more enlightened period, we have extended our inquiries and multiplied the number of the elements. The last task will be to simplify ; and by a closer obser- vation of nature, to learn from what a small store of primitive materials, all that we behold and wonder at was created.'" That the list of the primary elements of human reason, which our two philosophers have given, has no pretence to That Keid and Stew- i i ^i i ^i • • i i • t. -^ j_ • order : and that the principles which its contams art offer no systematic . * ' deduction of the pri- ^^6 not Systematically deduced by any ambitious tnary elements of hu- proccss of metaphysical ingenuity, is no valid man reason, is no valid ground of disparagement. In fact, which of the ground for disparage t i •/> • /> i ... , ine their labors vaunted classifications oi these primitive truths can stand the test of criticism ? The most cele- brated, and by far the most ingenious, of these, — the scheme of Kant, — though the truth of its details may be admitted, is no longer regarded as affording either a necessary deduction or a natural arrangement of our native cognitions ; and the reduction of these to system still remains a problem to be resolved. Lkct. XXXVIII. METAPHYSICS. 525 In point of fact, philosophers have not yet purified the antecedent conditions of the problem, — have not yet estab- PhiioBopbers have ^^^^^^^^ ^j^^ principles on which its solution OUi^ht not vet establislieil the ^ ' ° principle ou which our to be undertaken. And here I would solicit ultimate cognitions your attention to a circumstance, wliich shows are to be classified, j^^^. j^^^. plalosopliers are Still removed from the and reduced to system. i.- ^ i • • t, • i prospect ot an ultmiate decision. It is agreed, that the quality of necessity is that which discriminates a native from an adventitious element of knowledge. When we find, there- fore, a cognition which contains this discriminative quality, we are entitled to lay it down as one which could not have been obtained as a generalization from experience. This I admit. But when philosophers lay it down not only as native to the mind, but as a positive and immediate datum of an intellectual power, I demur. It is evident that the quality of necessity in a Necessity -either coguitiou mav depend on two difrereut and Tositive, or Negative, ^ _ . " . . as it results irom a Opposite j)rinciples, inasmuch as it may either power, or from a pow- be the result of a power, or of a powerlessness, eriessne^s of mind. ^^^ ^j^^ thinking principle. In the one case, it The first order of will be a Positive, in the other a Negative, Necessity,— the Posi- ncccssitv. Let US take examples of these oppo- tive, — illustrated, bv . * ^ ... the act of Perception. ^^te cases. In an act of perceptive conscious- nes.s, I think, and cannot but think, that I and that something diiforent from me exist, — in other words, that my perception, as a modification of the ego, exists, and that the object of my perception, as a modification of the non-ego, exists. In these <.nrcumstances, I pronounce Existence to be a native cognition, because I find that I cannot think except under the condition of thinkinir all that I am conscious of to exist. Existence is thus a form, a category of thought. But here, thougli I cannot but think existence, I am conscious of this thought as an act of power, — an act of intellectual force. It is the result of strength, and not of weakness. In like manner, when I think 2x2 = 4, the thought, though inevitable, is not felt as an imbecility; we know J4y an arithmetical . ^ i • ...i x- 'i' a.\ a .i It as true, and, in the percciition ot the truili, example ' ' ^ ' though the act be necessary, the mind is con- scious that the necessity does not arise from im])Otence. (^n the contrary, we attribute the same necessity to God. Here, therefoiv, there is a class of natural cognitions, which we may properly view as so many positive exertions of the mental vigor, and the cognition> of this class we consider as Positive. To this class will belong the notion of Existence and its modifications, the principles of Identity, 526 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVIIL and Contradiction, and Excluded Middle, the intuitions of Space and Time, etc. But besides these, there are other necessary forms of thought, which, by all philosophers, have been regarded The second order of .jg standing precisely on the same footing, which necessity, -the Nega- ^^ ^^^ ^^^^_^^ ^^ ^^ ^^. ^^^ ^^^^j,. jjg.^,j.^,^^ j.j,^j j^ tive. This not recog- _ •^ nized by philosophers. place of being the result of a j)ower, the neces- sity which belongs to them is merely a conse- quence of the impotence of our fiiculties. But if this be the case, nothing could be more unphilosophical than to arrogate to these negative inabilities, the dignity of positive energies. Evciy rule of philosophizing would be violated. The law of Parcimony pre- scribes, that principles are not to be multiplied without necessity, and that an hypothetical force be not j^ostulated to explain a phae- nomenon which can be better accounted for by an admitted impo- tence. The jihsenomenon of a heavy body rising from the earth, may warrant us in the assumption of a special power ; but it would surely be absurd to devise a special power (that is, a power besides gravitation) to explain the pha3nomenon of its descent. Now, that the imbecility of the human mind constitutes a great negative principle, to which sundry of the most important phrenomena of intelligence may be referred, appears to me incontestable ; and though the discussion is one somewhat abstract, I shall endeavor to give you an insight into the nature and application of this principle. I begin by the statement of certain principles, to which it is necessary in the sequel to refer. Principles referred The highest of all logical laws, in other words to in the discussion. ^he Supreme law of thought, is what is called 1. The Law of >;ou- the principle of Contradiction, or moi'e correctly Contradiction. the principle of Non- Contradiction. ^ It is this: A thing cannot be and not be at the same time, — Alpha esi, Alpha non est^ ai-e propositions which cannot both be true at once. A second fundamental law of thought, or rather the principle of Contradiction viewed in a certain , A . «• . n^ ^ ^^ as])ect, is called the principle of Excluded Mid- cluded Middle. ^ ' ^ ' die, or, more fully, the principle of Excluded Middle between two Contradictories. A thing either is or it is not, — Aut est Alpha aut non est; there is no medium; one must be true, both cannot. These principles require, indeed admit of, no proof. They prove everything, but are proved by nothing. When 1 See Appendix, II. — Ed. Lkct. XXXVm. METAPHYSICS. 527 I, therefore, have occasion to speak of these laws by name, you wall know to what principle I refer. Now, then, I lay it down as a law which, though not generalized by ])hilosophers, can be easily proved to be true Grand law of by its application to the phainoniena : That all thought,— That the ^j^^^ jg conceivable in thought, lies between two conceivable lies be- i • i . t . r- -i ^-i . ,. extremes, winch, as contradictory oi each other, tween two coutrauic- ' ' •' ' tory extremes. cannot both be true, but of which, as mutual contradictories, one must. For example, we conceive space, — Ave cannot but conceive space. I admit, therefore, that Space, indefinitely, is a positive and necessary form of thought. But when philosophers convert the fact, that we Established and ii- cannot but tliink space, oi-, to express it differ- lustrated, by reference ^i .i ^ i_i i ■ „ • ^ ii • _ ' ' entlv, that we are unable to nnaguie anythincr to Space, — 1°, as a •' ' . o .? o Maximum. <>^^ of spacc, — when i)hilosopliers, I say, convert this fiict with the assertion, that we have a no- tion, — a positive notion, of absolute or of infinite space, they assume,, not only what is not contained in the pha-nomenon, nay, they assume what is the very reverse of what the ph;enomenon manifests. It is ])lain, that space must either be bounded or not Space either bounded i^Q^.^^^ed. Thcsc are contradictorv alternatives ; or not bounded. _ * ^ on the principle of Contradiction, they caimot both be true, and, on the principle of Excluded Middle, one must be true. This cannot be denied, Avithout denying the primary laws of intelligence. I>ut though sjiace must be admitted to be neces- sarily either finite or infinite, we are able to conceive the possibility neither of its finitude, nor of its infinity. We are altogether unable to conceive space as bounded, — as finite)' that is, as a whole beyond which there is no fur' .'Space as absoiuieiy ^j^^^. .^^^.^ Every one is conscious th.it this is bounded inconceiva- . --i , t t i i ^jg nnpossible. It contradicts also the supjiositiou of space as a necessary notion ; for if we could imagine space as a terminated sphere, and that sjihere not itself enclosed in a surrounding sjiace, we should not be obliged to think everything in .space; and, on the contrary, if Ave did imagine this ter- minated sphere as itself in space, in that case Ave should not h.ive actually conceived all space as abounded Avhole. The one contradic- tory is thus found inconceivable ; Ave cannot conceive space as posi- tively limited. On the other hand, Ave are equally jiowerless to realize in thought the possibility of the opposite contradictory; Ave cannot conceive space as infinite, as Avithout limits. You may launch out in thought beyond the solar walk, you may transcend in fancy even the universe 528 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXVIIL of matter, and rise from sphere to sphere in the region of empty space, until imagination sinks exhausted ; — with Space as infinitely ^-^l this what have you done ? You have never uubounded inconceiv- , -, i n • i • t i ^jjjg gone beyond the nnite, you have attamed at best only to the indefinite, and the indefinite, how- ever expanded, is still always the finite. As Pascal enei-getically says, "Inflate our conceptions as Ave may, with all the finite possible we cannot make one atom of the infinite."^ "The infinite is infin- itely incomprehensible."- Now, then, both con- Thowgh botii tiiese tradictories are equally inconceivable, and could contradictory aiterna- ^^ jj^^^-^ ^^^^. attention to onc alone, wc should tives are inconceiva- _ ... . ., , , , -, -, . , „ . „. deem it at once impossible and absurd, and sup- ble, one or other is yet ^ _ . necessary. posc its uiiknown opposite as necessarily true. But as we not only can, but are constrained to consider both, we find that both are equally incomprehensible ; and yet, though unable to view either as possible, we are forced by a higher law to admit that one, but one only, is necessary. That the conceivable lies always between two inconceivable extremes, is illustrated by every other relation Space, 20, as a Mini- ^^ thought. We have found the maximum of mum. . 1 .1 1 1 J • space incomprehensible, can we comprehend its minimum? This is equally impossible. Here, likewise, we recoil from one inconceivable contradictory only to infringe upon another. Let us take a portion of space however small, we can never con- ceive it as the smallest. It is necessarily ex- An absolute mini- tended, and may, consequently, be divided into mumo space, an 1 ^ ^^^^ ^^, quarters, and each of these halves or infinite divisibility, ^ ' alike inconceivable. quarters may again be divided into other halves or quarters, and this ad injinitwn. But if we are unable to construe to our mind the possibility of an absolute minimum of space, we can as little represent to ourselves the possi- bility of an infinite divisibility of any extended entity. In like manner Time ; — this is a notion even more universal than space, for while we exempt from occupying Further illustration gpace the energies of mind, we are unable to by reference to Time; , , "" . ^. rrii_ -1°, as a Maximum. conccive these as not occupying time. Ihus, we think everything, mental and material, as in time, and out of time we can think nothing. But, if we attempt to comprehend time, either in whole or in part, we find that thouglit 1 Pensees, Premiere Partie, art. iv. l,(vol. ii. des atomes, au prix de lar§alit6 des choses." p. 64 Faugere.) Pascal's words are : — "Nous — Ed. avons beau eufler nos conceptions au deli des 2 Ibid. Sec. Part., art. iii. 1. — Eji, «8paces imaginables; nous n'enfantons que Lect. XXXVIII. METAPHYSICS. 529 is hedged in between two incomprehensibles. Let us try the whole. And here let lis look back, — let us dbnsidcr time a i)arte ante.. And here we may surely flatter ourselves that I. Time, apartertnte, ^.^ shall be able to conccive time as a whole, :as an absolute whole, ^ i i » • t i i i i inconceivable ^^'* "^''^ "^'^ havc the past period bounded by the pi-esent ; the past cannot, therefore, be infinite or eternal, for a bounded infinite is a contradiction. But we shall deceive ourselves. AVe are altogether unable to conceive time as commencing; we can easily represent to ourselves time under any relative limitation of commencement and termination, but we are conscious to ourselves of nothing more clearly, than that it would be equally possible to tliink without thought, as to con- strue to the mind an absolute commencement, or an absolute termi- nation, of time, that is, a beginning and an end beyond which, time is conceived as non-existent. Goad imagination to the utmost, it still sinks paralyzed within the bounds of time, and time survives as the condition of the thought itself in which we annihilate the universe. On the other hand, the concept of 2. Time, as an infinite ^^^ ^-^^^ ^^ without limit, — witliout commence- regress, inconceivable. ' , n . -i i -vt-t ment, is equally impossible. v\ e cannot con- ceive the infinite regress of time ; for such a notion could only be realized by the infinite addition in thought of finite times, and such an addition would itself require an eternity for its accomplishment. If we dream of eftecting this, we only deceive ourselves by substi- tutins: the indefinite for the infinite, than which no two notions can "be more opposed. The negation of a commencement of time involves, likewise, the aflirmation, that an infinite time has, at every moment, already run ; that is, it implies the contradiction, that an infinite has been completed. For the same 3. Time, as an inti- rcasous, we are Unable to conceive an infinite nite progress, incon- . i -i i • i' •. i . ., i)ro the infinite ju-ogress taken together, involve the triple contradiction of an infinite concluded, of an infinite com- mencing, and of two infinities, not exclusive of each other. Now take the parts of time, — a moment, for Time, 2^, as a Mini- instance ; this we must conceive, as either divi.si- muin. Till- iiionuMit , , . ,, . .!,".• i c * : ^ .. ... ,. . . ble to infinity, or that it is made up ot certain of time either ilivisi- •' ' ble to iiiiinitv, ..r com- absolutely smallest parts. One or other of these posed of certain abso- contradictories must be tlie case. But cacli is, luteiy smallest parts. ^^ ^^^^ cquallv inconceivable. Timc is a proten- Both alternatives in- , , i e '* oonceivabie. sivc quantity, and, consequently, any part ol it, however small, cannot, without a contradiction, be imacrined as not divisible into parts, and these parts into G7 530 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XXXVIIt others ad infinitmn. But the opposite alternative is equally impos- sible ; we cannot think this infinite division. One is necessarily true ; but neither can be conceived possible. It is on the inability of the mind to conceive either the ultimate indivisibility, or the end- less divisibility of space and time, that the arguments of the Eleatic Zeno against the possibility of motion are founded, — arguments which at least show, that motion, however certain as a fact, cannot be conceived possible, as it involves a contradiction. The same principle could be shown in various other relations, but what I have now said is, I presume, sufli- This grand principle cient to make you understand its import. Now called the Law-of the )^\^q jaw of mind, that the conceivable is in every Conditioned. relation bounded bv the inconceivable, I call the The counter opinion ". -n ^ i founded on vagueness L'^w ot the Conditioned. 1 ou will find many and confusion. philosophers wlio hold an opinion the reverse of this, — maintaining that the absolute is a native or necessary notion of intelligence. This, I conceive, is an opinion founded on vagueness and confusion. They tell us we hava a notion of absolute or infinite space, of absolute or infinite time. But they do not tell us in which of the opposite contradictories this notion is realized. Though these are exclusive of each other, and though both are only negations of the conceivable on its opposite poles, they confound together these exclusive inconceivables into a single notion ; suppose it positive, and baptize it with the name of absolute. The sum, therefore, of what I have Sum of the author's ^^^^^ f^iaiinX is, that the Conditioned is that which is alone conceivable or cogitable; the Unconditioned, that which is inconceivable or incogitable. The conditioned or the thinkable lies between two extremes or poles; and these extremes or poles are each of them unconditioned, each of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or contradictory of the other. Of these two repugnant opposites, the one is that of Unconditional or Absolute Limitation ; the other that of Uncon- ditional or Infinite Illimitation. The one we may, therefore, in general call the Absolutely Unconditioned, the other, the Infinitely Unconditioned; or, more simply, the Absolute and the Infinite; the term absolute expressing that which is finished or complete, the term infinite that which cannot be terminated or concluded. These terms, which, like the Absolute and Infinite themselves, philosophers have confounded, ought not only to be distinguished, but opjtosed as contradictory. The notion of neither unconditioned is negative: — the absolute and the infinite can each only be conceived as a negation of the thinkable. In other words, of the absolute and Lect. XXXVIII. METAPHYSICS. 531 infinite we liave no conception at all. On the subject of the uncon- ditioned, — the absolute and infinite, it is not necessary for me at present further to dilate. I shall only add in conclusion, that, as this is the one true, it is the only orthodox, inference. We must believe The author's doctrine j,^ ^]^^^ infinity of God ; but the infinite God can- both the one true and ^^^^ , .^^ ^j^^ present limitation of our facul- the only orthodox m- ./ ' i • i » t-v • fgreuce ties, be comprehended or conceived. A Deity understood, would be no Deity at all ; and it is blasphemy to say that God only is as we are able to think Him to be. We know God, according to the finitude of our faculties; but we believe much that we are incompetent properly to know. The Infinite, the infinite God, is what, to use the words of Pascal, is infinitely inconceivable. Faith, — Belief, — is the organ by which we appiehend what is beyond our knowledge. In this all Divines and Philosophers, worthy of the name, are found to coincide ; and the few who assert to man a knowledge of the infinite, do this on the daring, the extravagant, the paradoxical supposition, either that Human Reason is identical with the Divine, or that Man and the Absolute are one. The assertion has, however, sometimes been hazarded, through a mere mistake of the object of knowledge or con- To assert that the in- ^.^^ ti^^ . .^g if that could be an object of knowl- finite can be thought, ^ ' _ "^ but only inade(iuateiy edge, whicli was not kuown ; as if that could be thongiit. is confradic- ^^ object of Conception which was not conceived. »orv. "^ ^ It has been held, that the infinite is known or conceived, though only a part of it (and every part, be it observed, is ij)s(> fdcto ^n\i{.') can be apprehended; and Aristotle's definition of the infinite has been adopted by those who disregard his declara- tion, that the infinite, (jua infinite, is beyond the reach of human understanding.' To say that the infinite can be thought, l)iit oidy inadequately thought, is a contradiction /;/ adjecto ; it is the s.in\e as saying, that the infinite can be known, but only known as finite. The Scri|)tures exi)licitly declare that the infinite is for us now incognizable; — they declare that the finite, and the finite alone, is witliin our reach. It is said (to cite one text out of many), that '■'■ )(Oic I Vnow in part" {i.e. the finite) ; "but?At/t" {i.e. in the life to come) "shall I know even as I am known"- (t. e .without limitation).' 1 Phys. i. 4, 6 (Rekkcr): Tb ^fc &trf tpof 17 oXov and Tf\fiov; for it is added ;— 05 8i dTrftpov S.-yfttXTTot'. Tlie definition occurs, fnqSff ?{£«>, * tovt' iffrl rtKfiov Koi 8Kot Phys. iii. 6, 11 : "Airapov fxiv ovu i(n\v ov See UMcu-vwoni, p. 27. — Ed. Kara. -Koa'ov Kaix^ivovffiv aUi n Aa/Sf?^ " ^ CorinMa,,.^, xiii. 12. V ^, . ^ 3 , 3 See ApixudviL, HI— Ed. KTTij' f^u. To the aTTftpoy is opposed the LECTURE XXXIX. THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. — LAW OF THE CONDITIONED, IN ITS APPLICATIONS. — CAUSALITY. I HAVE been desirous to exj^lain to you the principle of the Conditioned, as out of it we are able not only Law of the Condi- ^^ explain the hallucination of the Absolute, but tioined in its applica- tions, to solve some of the most momentous, and hith- erto most puzzling, problems of mind. In par- ticular, this principle affords us, I think, a solution of the two great intellectual principles of Cause and Effect, and of Substance and Phajnomenon or Accident. Both are only applications of the prin- ciple of the Conditioned, in different relations. Of all questions in the history of philosophy, that concerning the nature and genealogy of the notion of Causality, ausaiy—tieprob- j perhaps, the most famous; and I shall en- lem, and attempts at ^ '^ , ' •oiution. deavor to give you a comprehensive, though necessarily a very summary, view of the prob- lem, and of the attempts which have been made at its solution. This, however imperfect in detail, may not be without advantage ; for there is not, as far as I am aware, in any work a generalized survey of the various actual and possible opinions on the subject. But before proceeding to consider the different attempts to explain the phaenomenon, it is proper to state The phenomenon of i x n ^ • i i i i Causality —what. ^ determine what the phaenomenon to ba explained really is. Nor is this superfluous, for we shall find that some philosophers, instead of accommodating their solutions to the problem, have accommodated the problem to their solutions. ^When we are aware of something which begins to be, we ai-e, by the necessity of our intelligence, constrained to believe that it has a Cause. But what does the expression, that it has a cause, signify ? If we analyze our thought, we shall find that it simply 1 Cf. Discussions, p. 609. — Ed. Lect. XXXIX. METAPHYSICS. 533 means, that as we cannot conceive any new existence to commence, therefore, all that now is seen to arise under What aprears to us a ncw appearance had previously an existence to beRin to be, is nee- under a prior form. We are utterly unable to esearily thought by us v • i i i -i •!• c- i as having previously ^^^^^"^"^ "^ thought the pOSSlblhty of the COm- existed under another plcmcnt of existence being either increased or ^o'"™- diminished. We are unable, on the one hand, to conceive nothing becoming something, — or, on the other, something becoming nothing. When God is said to create out of nothing, we construe this to thought by supi)osing that He evolves existence out of Himself; we view the Creator as the cause of the universe. "Ex nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reveiti," ^ expresses, in its purest form, the whole intellectual jjhaj- nomenon of causality. There is thus conceived an absolute tautology betwecii the effect and its causes. We think the causes to contain Hence an absolute ,^\\ ^\^^x. is contained in the effect ; the effect to tautology between the , . ,, . i • i ^ , • i • ,i „ , ... contain notinno: which was not contained in the effect and its causes. » This illustrated. causes. Take an example. A neutral salt is an effect of the conjunction of an acid and alkali. Here we do not, and here we cannot, conceive that, in effect, any new existence has been added, nor can we conceive that any has been taken away. But another example: — Gunpowder is the effect of a mixture of sulphur, charcoal, and nitre, and these three sub- stances are again the effect, — result, of simpler constituents, and these constituents again of simpler elements, either known or con- ceived to exist. Now, in all this series of compositions, we cannot conceive that aught begins to exist. The gunpowder, the last compound, we are compelled to think, contains precisely the same quantum of existence that its ultimate elements contained, prior to their combination- Well, we explode the powder. Can we con- ceive that existence has been diminished by the annihilation of a single element ])reviously in being, or increased by the addition of a single element which was not heretofore in nature? "'Omnia mutantur; nihil interit,"'^ — is what we think, what we must think. This then is the mental phaMiomonon of causality, — that we neces- sarily deny in thought that the object which appears to begin to be, really so begins ; and that we necessarily identify its present with its past existence. Here it is not requisite tliat we should know under what form, under what combinations, this existence was 1 Tersins, iii. 84. [Cf. Rixncr, Gachkhtt dtr Phiiosophir, v. i. p 83, i 62.] 2 Ovid, Met. xv. 165. — Eu. Brown"s account of OM METAPHYSICS Lect XXXIX previously realized, in other words, it is not requisite that we should know what are the particular causes of the par- ■Not necessary to the ticular effect. The discovery of the connection notion of Causality, ^f determinate causes and determinate effects is that we isboula know the particular causes merely contingent and individual, — merely the oi the particular effect. datum of experience; but the principle that every event should have its causes, is necessary and universal, and is imposed on us as a condition of our human intelligence itself. This last is the only phaenomenon to be ex- plained. Nor are philosophers, in general, really at variance in their statement of the problem. However divergent in their mode of explanation, they are at one in regard to th« matter to be exj)lained.^ But there is one exception. Dr. Brown has given a very different account of the pha3nomenon in question. To this statement of it, I beg to solicit vour atten- the phaenomenon of . i • i • Causality. ^^^" 5 ^^^' ^^ ^^^ theory IS solely accommodated to his view of the phenomenon, so his theory is refuted by showing that his view of the phaenomenon is errone- ous. To prevent misconception, I shall exhibit to you his doctrine in his own words : ^ " Why is it, then, we believe that continiial similarity of the future to the past, which constitutes, or at least is im- Brown quoted. ,. , . plied in, our notion of power ? A stone tends to the earth, — a stone will always tend to the earth, — are not the same proposition ; nor can the first be said to involve the second. It is not to experience, then, alone that we must have recourse for the origin of the belief, but to some other principle which converts the simple facts of experience into a general expectation or confi- dence, that is afterwards to be physically the guide of all our plans and actions. " This principle, since it cannot be derived from experience itself, which relates only to the past, must be an original principle of our nature. There is a tendency in the very constitution of the mind from which the experience arises, — a tendency, that, in everything which it adds to the mere facts of experience, may truly be termed instinctive ; for though that term is commonly suj^posed to imply something peculiarly mysterious, there is no more real mystery in it than in any of the simplest successions of thought, which are all, in like manner, the results of a natural tendency of the mind to exfst in certain states, after existing in certain other states. The I On the nature and origin of the notion 2 Phii of the Human Mind, Lect vi p. 34, Causality, see Platner, PAii..4p/i. i. § 845 e< ie? edit. 1830. — Ed. Lkct. XXXIX. METAPHYSICS. 535 belief is, a state or feeling of the mind as easily conceivable as any other state of it, — a new feeling, arising in certain circumstances, as uniformly as, in certain other circumstances, there arise other states or feelings of the mind, which we never consider as mysteri- ous; those, tor example, which we terra tiie sensations of sweetness or of sound. To have our nerves of taste or hearing afiected in a certain manner, is not, indeed, to taste or hear, but it is immediately afterwards to have those particular sensations ; and this nierely because the mind was originally so constituted, as to exist directly in the one state after existing in the other. To observe, in like manner, a series of antecedents and consequents, is not, in the very feeling of the moment, to believe in the future similarity, but, in consequence of a similar original tendency, it is immediately after- wards to believe that the same antecedents Avill invariably be fol- lowed by the same (consequents. That this belief of the future is a state of mind very different from the mere perception or memory of the past, from which it flows, is indeed true ; but what resem- blance has sweetness, as a sensation of the mind, to the solution of a few particles of sugar on the tongue ; or the harmonies of music, to the vibration of particles of air? All which we know, in both cases, is, that these successions regularly take place ; and in the legular successions of nature, which could not, in one instance more than in another, have been predicted without experience, nothing is mysterious, or everything. is mysterious "It is more immediately our present ])urpose to consider, What it truly is which is the object of inquiry, when we examine the physical successions of events, in whatever manner the belief of their similarity of sequence may have arisen ? Is it the mere series of regular antecedents and consequents themselves ? or. Is it any- thing more mysterious, whicli must be supposed to intervene aiid connect them by some invisible bondage? "We see in nature one event followed by another. The fall of a spark on gunpowder, for exam])le, followed by the deflagratii)n of the gunpowder; and, by a peculiar tendency of our constitution, which we mu.st take for granted, whatever be our theory ()f ]tower, we believe, that, as long as all the circumstances continue the same, the sequence of events will continue the same; tliat the detlagratioii of gunpowder, for example, will be the invariable consequence of the fall of a spark on it : in other words, we believe the gunpowder to be susceptible of deflagration on the ap|)lication of a spark, :Mid a spark to have the power of deflagrating g\ni])owder. "There is nothing more, then, understood in the train of events, however regular, than the regular onler of antecedents and couse- 636 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXIX. quents which compose the train ; and between which, if anything else existed, it would itself be a part of the train. All that we mean, when we ascribe to one substance a susceptibility of being affected by another substance, is that a certain change will uniformly take place in it when that other is present; — all that we mean, in like manner, when we ascribe to one substance a power of affecting another substance, is, that, Avhere it is present, a certain change will uniformly take place in that other substance. Power, in short, is significant not of anything different from the invariable antecedent itself, but of the mere invariableness of the order of its appearance in reference to some invariable consequent, — the invariable antece- dent being denominated a cciKse, the invariable consequent an effect. To say, that water has the power of dissolving salt, and to say that salt will always melt when water is poured upon it, are to say pre- cisely the same thing ; — there is nothing in the one proposition, which is not exactly and to the same extent enunciated in the other." Now, in explaining to you the doctrine of Dr, Brown, I am happy to avail myself of the assistance of my late lamented friend, Dr> Brown's successor, whose metaphysical acuteness was not the least remarkable of his many brilliant qualities. " Now, the distinct and full purport of Dr. Brown's doctrine, it will be observed, is this, — that when we apply in 1 son quo e on ^|^-g ^ ^j^^ words cuuse and poicer, we attach Brown's doctrine of "^ . Causality. ^*-* Other meaning to the terms than what he has. explained. By the word caxse, we mean no more than that in this instance the spark falling is the event imme- diately prior to the explosion : including the belief that in all cases hitherto, when a spark has fallen on gunpowder (of course, sup- posing other circumstances the same), the gunpowder has kindled ;. and that whenever a spark shall again so fall, the grains v.dll again take fire. The present immediate priority, and the past and future invariable sequence of the one event upon the other, are all the ideas that the mind can have in view in speaking of the event in that instance as a cause ; and in speaking of the power in the spark to produce this effect, we mean merely to express the invariableness with which this has happened and will happen. "This is the doctrine; and the author submits it to this test: — • 'Let any one,' he says, 'ask himself what it is Avhich he means by the term ' power,' and without contenting himself with a few i^hrase* that signify nothing, reflect before he give his answer, — and he will find that he means nothing more than that, in all similar circum- stances, the explosion of gunpowder will be the immediate and uniform consequence of the apj^lication of a spark. Lect. XXXIX. METAPHYSICS. 53T " This test, indeed, is the only one to which the question can be- brought. For the question does not regard causes themselves, but solely the ideas of cause, in the human mind. If, therefore, every one to whom this analvsis of the idea that is in his mind when he speaks of a cause, is proposed, finds, on comparing it with what })assed in his mind, that this is a complete and full account of his conception, there is nothing more to be said, and the point is made good. By that sole possible test the analysis is, in such a case, established. If, on the contrary, when this analysis is proposed, as containins all the ideas which we annex to the words cause and power, the minds of most men cannot satisfy themselves that it is- complete, but are still possessed with a strong suspicion that there is something more, which is not here accounted for, — then the analysis is not yet established, and it becomes necessary to inquire, by additional examination of the subject, what that more may be.' " Let us then ai)jily the test by which Dr. Brown j)roposes that the truth of his views shall be tried. Let us ask ourselves what Ave mean when we say, that the spark has power to kindle the gunpow- der, — that the i>owder is suscei)tible of being kindled by the spark. Do we mean only that whenever they come together this will hap- pen? Do we merely predict this simple and certain futurity? " We do not fear to say, that when we speak of a power in one substance to produce a change in another, and of a susceptibility of such change in that other, we express more than our belief that the change has taken and will take place. There is more ni our mind than a conviction of the past and a foresight of the future. There is, besides this, the conception included of a fixed constitution of their nature, which determines the event, — a constitution, which, while it lasts, makes the event a necessary consequence of the situ- ation in which the objects are placed. We should say then, that there are included in these terms, 'power,' and • susceptibility of change,' two ideas which are not expressed in Dr. Brown's an.-ilysis, — one of necessity, and the other of a constitution of things, in which that necessity is established. That these two ideas are not exi)ressed in the terms of Dr. Brown's analysis, is seen by quoting again his words: — 'He will find that he means nothing more than that, in all similar circumstances, the exi»losiun of gunpowder will be the immediate and uniform consequence of the ai)plication of a 8})ark.' "It is certain, from the whole tenor of his work, that Dr. Brown has desi(rneut as the paralytic learns after the volition, that his limbs do not obey his mind ; so it is only after volition that the man in health learns, that his limbs do obey the mandates of his will. But, independently of all tliis, the second objection above men- tioned is fatal to the theory which would found the judgment of 1 See Reid's Wurks. p. 866. Difctifs., p. 612. — Ed. 544 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXIX causality on any empirical cognition, whether of the phgenomena of mind or of the phenomena of matter. Ad- 2. And even if this mitting tliat causation were cognizable, and that admitted, fails to ac- perception and self-consciousness were compe- count for tlie judg- ... ment of Causality. ^^nt to its apprehension, Still as these faculties could only take note of individual causations, we should be wholly unable, out of such empirical acts, to evolve the quality of necessity and universality, by which this notion is dis- tinguished. Admitting that we had really observed the agency of any number of causes, still this would not explain to us, how we are unable to think a manifestation of existence without thinking it as an effect. Our internal experience, especially in the relation of our volitions to their effects, may be useful in giving us a clearer notion of causality ; but it is altogether incompetent to account for what :n it there is of the quality of necessity. So much for the two the- ories at the head of the Table. As the first and second opinions have been usually associated, so also have the third and fourth, — that is, the doctrine that our notion of causality is the offspring of the objective principle of Induction or Generalization, and the doctrine, that it is the offspring of the subjective principle of Association or Custom. In regard to the former, — the third, it is plain that the observa- tion, that certain phoenomena are found to suc- iii. Objective— In- ceed certain other phaenomena, and the general- duction. Generaliza- . . , i i . ^j^jj ization consequent thereon, that these are recip- "•( t rocnlly causes and effects, could never of itself have engendered not only the strong but the irresistible belief, that every event must have its cause. Each of these observations is con- tingent; 'and- any number of observed contingencies will never im- pose upon' us the feeling of necessity, — of our inability to think the opposite. Nay more; this theory evolves the absolute notion of causalitv out of the observation of a certain number of uniform consecutions among phienomena. But we find no difliculty what- ever in conceiving the reverse of all or any of the consecutions we have observed ; and yet the general notion of causality, which, ex hypothesis is their result, Ave cannot possibly think as possibly unreal. We have always seen a stone fall to the ground, when . thrown into the air, but we find no difficulty in representing to our- selves the possibility of one or all stones gravitating from the earth ; only we cannot conceive the possibility of this, or any other event, happening without a cause. Nor , i> whatever in it ot the necessary, but we havu here to account not for a strong, but for an absolutely irresistible, belief On this theory, also, the causal judgment, when association is recent, should be weak, and sliould only gradually acquire its full force in pro])ortion as custom becomes inveterate. But do we find that the causal judgment is weaker in the young, stronger in the* old? There is no difference. In either case there is no less and no more; the necessity in both is absolute. Mr. ITume patronized the opinion, that the notion of causality is the offspring of experience ensrendered uijon custom.' l>ut those have a sorrv insight into the philosophy of that great thinker, wlio suppose that this was a dog- matic theory of his own. On the contrary, in his hands, it was a mere reduction of dogmatism to absurdity by showing the inconsis- tency of its i-esults. To the Lockian sensualism, Hume proposed the problem, — to account for the pha3nomenon of necessity in our notion of the causal nexus. That philosophy afforded no other ]>rinciple through which even the attempt at a solution could be made; — and tlie ])rinciple of custom, Hume shows, could not fur nish a real necessity. The alternative was 2)l:un. P^ither the doc- trine of sensualism is false, or our nature is a delusion. Shallow thinkers adopted the latter alternative, and were lost; profound thinkers, on the contrary, were determined to lay a deeper founda- tion of i)hilosophy than that of the superficial edifice ot" Lcoke ; and thus it is that Hume became the cause or the occasion . f all that is of principal value in our more recent metaphysics. Hume is the parent of tlie jihilosophy of Kant, and, through Kant, of tlie whole philosophy of (iermany; he is tlie ))arent of the philosophy of Keid and Stewart in Scotland, and of all that is of preeminent note in the metaphysics of France and Italy. — But to return. I now come to the second category (B), and to the first of the four particular heads which it likewise contains, V. Aspeciaipriuci- _ ^j^^ opinion, namely, that the judtrment, that pie of intelliKonce. • ' ' evei-ything tliat begins to be must have a cause, is a simple j)rimary datum, a jiositive revelation of intelligence. To this head are to be referreil the tlieories on causality of Descartes, Leibnitz, Heid, Stewart, Kant, Ficlite, Cousin, and the majority of recent philosophers. This is the fifth theory in order. 1 [On IIume'8 theory. See PUtner, Phil Aph. q. i. } 850, p 486-6; edit. 1798.1 69 I 646 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XXXIX Dr. Brown has promulgated a doctrine of Causality, which may be numbered as the sixth ; though perhaps it is VI. Expectation of i^^rdlv deserving of distinct enumeration. He the constancy of na- -' .™, i-i ^ • \ ^ ^„re. actually identifies the causal judgment, Avhich to us is necessary, with the principle by which we are merely inclined to believe in the uniformity of nature's opera- tions. Superseding any articulate consideration of this opinion, and re- verting to the fifth, much might be said in relation to the several modifications of this opinion, as held by different philosophers; but I must content myself with a brief criticism of the doctrine in refer- ence to its most general features. Now it is manifest, that, against the assumption of a special prin- ciple, which this doctrine makes, there exists a primary presumption of philosophy. This is the law of Parcimony, which forbids, without necessity, the multiplication of entities, powers. Fifth opinion criti- principles, or causes ; above all the postulatiou of *''^^, '. an unknown force, Avhere a known impotence can 1 rimary presump- ' i lion of philosophy account for the effect. We are, therefore, enti- aRaiust assumption of i\q^ ^q apply Occam's razor to this theory of special princip e o causalitv, unless it be proved impossible to ex- causality. •' ^ plain the causal judgment at a cheaper rate, by deriving it from a higher and that a negative origin. On a c[octrine like the present is thrown the onus of vindicating its necessity, by showing that unless a special and positive principle be assumed, there exists no competent mode to save the phtenomena. It can only, therefore, be admitted provisorily; and it falls of course, if the phte- nomenon it would explain can be explained on less onerous conditions. Leaving, therefore, the theory to stand or fall according as the two remaining opinions are or are not found VII. The principle insufficient, I proceed to the consideration of of Non-Contradiction. r^, , i -, ■ -i • these. The first, — the seventh, is a doctruie that has long been exploded. It attempts to establish the princii)le of Causality upon the principle of Contradiction. Leibnitz was too acute a metaphysician to attempt to prove the princii)le of Sufficient Reason or Causality, which is an ampliative or synthetic })iinciple, by the principle of contradiction, which is merely explicative or ana lytic. But his followers were not so wise. Wolf,^ Baumgarten,' and many other Leibnitzians, paraded demonstrations of the law of the Sufficient Reason on the ground of the law of Contradiction j 1 [Ontologia, ^ 70.] ZurfichfndeT Grund. Zedler, Lfxikon,v. Oaur 3 [Metaphysik, i IS] [Cf.W&Wh, Lexikon v. salitdt.] 2 Lect. XXXIX. METAPHYSICS. 541 but the reasoning always proceeds on the covert assumption of the very point in question. The same argument is, however, at an ear- lier date, to be found in Locke,^ and modifications of it in Hobbes* and Clarke.'' Hume,* who was only aware of the argument as in the hands of the P^nglish metaphysicians, has given it a refutation, which has earned the aj)probation of Reid; and by foreign philosophers its emptiness, in the hands of the Wolfian metaphysicians, has frequently been exposed.'' Listen to the pretended demonstration: — What- ever is produced without a cause, is produced by nothing; in other words, has nothing for its cause. But nothing fallacy of the sup- ^..^^^ ^^^ more be a cause than it can be something. posed demoustriitiou. .... , 1 he same intuition that makes us aware, that nothing is not something, shows us that everything must have a real cause of its existence. To this it is sufficient to say, that the existence of causes being the point in question, the existence of causes must not be taken for granted, in the very reasoning which attempts to pi-ove their reality. In excluding causes we exclude all causes; and consequently exclude nothing considered as a cause ; it is not, therefore, allowable, contrary to that exclusion, to suppose nothing as a cause, and then from the absurdity of that supposition to infer the absurdity of the exclusion itself If everything must have a cause, it follows that, upon the exclusion of other causes, we must accept of nothing as a cause. But it is the very point at issue, M'hether everything must have a cause or not ; and, therefore, it violates the first principles of i-easoning to take this qua3situm itself as granted. This opinion is now universally abandoned. The eighth and last opinion is that which regards the judgment of causality as derived ; and derives it not fiom Mil iiic Law (if .^ i)ower, but from an impotence, of mind: in a the ('oiiditioued. .•i^i/^t- word, fniin the ])rinci])le ol the Conditional. I do not think it possible, without a detailed ex])osition of the various categories of thought, to make you fully understand the grouiul.s and bearings of this opinion. In attempting to explain, you must, therefore, allow me to take for granted certain laws of thought, to which I have only been al)le incidentally to allude. Those, how- I [Essiii/, book iv. c. 10, ^ 3 llorAs i. p. 4 Trtat of Hum. Natuif,h i. p. iii. ■• 3. Cf 294.] [This is doubtless tlie passage of Locke Reid, Works, p. 455 Stewart, Dissert. Works, which is criticized l)y Umni- (Treat, of Hum. i p. 441. — Ei> .V(ir.,b i p 1. § 15); l)iit it will hardly bear the •*■ (Sci' Wnlch, />.t c. /.urridiendrr Grunil. iiitrrprct:itioii put upon it by Hume and Sir Uiedcrmanni Arin Srholastica, t. vii. p. 120, W. lliiinilton — Kn.] Schwab, Prti\.1 the Conditioned. • _ •' tal law of the Conditioned, This theory, which has not hitherto been proposed, is recommended by its extreme .simplicity. It ])ostulates no new, no special, no positive principle. It only sui)poses th:it tlic mind is limited; and the law of limitation, the law of tiie Conditioned, in one of its applications, The law of the Co... ^.^^^titutes the law of Causality. The mind is ditioiied . • {> i i necessitate*! to tluiik certain lorms ; antl, under these forms, thought is only possil)]c in llic interval between two contradictory extremes, both ot" wliich are absolutely inconceivable, but one of which, on the principle of Excluded jNIiddlc, is necessarily true. Ill reference to the i)resent subject, it is only reijuisite to spec- ifv two of tliese forms, — Existence and Time. I showed you that thought is only possible under the native conceptions, — the a jjn'ori forms, — of existence and time; in other words, the notions of ex- istence and time are essential elements of every act of intelligence. But wliilc the mind is thus astricted to certain necessary modes or forms of thought, in these tbrms it can only think under certain conditions. Thus, while obliged to think under the thought of time, it cannot conceive, on the one hand, the absolute cornmeiu'ement of time, and it cannot conceive, t)n the other, the intinite non-commence- ment of time ; in like manner, on the one hand, it cannot conceive 552 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XL. an absolute minimum of time, nor yet, on the other, can it conceive the infinite divisibility of time. Yet these form two pairs of contra- dictories, that is, of counter-propositions, which, if our intelligence be not all a lie, cannot both be true, but of which, on the same authority, one necessarily must be true. This proves : 1°, That it is not competent to argue, that what cannot be comprehended as pos- sible by us, is impossible in reality ; and 2°, That the necessities of thought are not always positive powers of cognition, but often neo-ative inabilities to know. The law of mind, that all tliat is pos- itively conceivable, lies in the interval between two inconceivable ^ extremes, and which, however palpable when stated, has never been generalized, as far as I know, by any philosopher, I call the Law or Princi])le of the Conditioned. Thus, the whole jihicnomenon of causality seems to me to be noth- ing more than the law of the Conditioned, in its This law in its ap- application to a thing thought under the form or plication to a tiling mental category of Existence, and under the thought under Exist- ^^^.^^^ ^^. ^^^^^j category of Time. We cannot ence and Time, affords ^ the phenomenon of know, wc cannot think a thing, except as exist- Causaiity ing, that is, under the category of existence ; and we cannot know or think a thing as existing, ex- cept in time. Now the application of the law of the conditioned to any object, thought as existent, and thought as in time, will give us at once the phaenomenon of causality. And thus: — An object is given us, either by sense or suggestion, — imagination. As known, we cannot but think it existent, and in time. But to say that we cannot but think it to exist, is to say, that we are unable to think it non-existent, that is, that we are unable to annihilate it in thought. And tliis we cannot do. We may turn aside from it; we may occupy our attention with other objects; and we may thus exclude it from our thoughts. This is certain : we need not think it ; but it is equally certain, that thinking it, we cannot think it not to exist. This will be at once admitted of the present; but it may possibly be denied of the past and future. But if we make the experiment, we shall find the mental annihilation of an object equally impossible under time i>ast, present, or future. To obviate misapprehension, however, I must make Annihilation and ^ y^iy simple observation. When I say that it Creation, - as con- .^ impossible to annihilate an object in thought — ceived by us. * . . in other words, to conceive it as non-existent,— It is of course not meant that it is impossible to imagine the object wholly changed in form. We can figure to ourselves the elements of which it is composed, distributed and arranged and modified Lect. XL. METAPHYSICS. 553: in ten thousand forms, — \ve can imagine anything of it, short of annihilation. But the complement, the quantum, of existence, which is realized in any object, — that we can represent to ourselves, either as increased, without abstraction from other bodies, or as diminished, without addition to them. In short, we are unable to consti'ue it in thought, tliat there can be an atom absolutely added to, or an atom absolutely taken away from, existence in general. Make the experiment. Form to yourselves a notion of the universe; now can you conceive that the quantity of existence, of which the universe is the sum, is either am))litied or diminished? You can conceive the creation of a world as lightly as you conceive the creation of an atom. But what is a creation ? It is not the springing nf nothing into something. Far from it : - — it is conceived, and is by us conceivable, merely as the evolution of a new form of existence,^ by the fiat of the Deity. Let us su])itoso the very crisis of creation. Can we realize it to ourselves, in thought, that, the moment after the universe came into manifested being, there was a larger complement of existence in the' universe and its Author together, than there was the moment before, in tlic Deity himself alone? This we cannot imagine. What I have now said of our conceptions of creation, holds true of our conceptions of annihilation. "We can conceive no real annihilation, — no absolute sinking of something into nothing. But, as creation is cogitable by us only as an exertion of divine power, so annilmation is only to be conceived by us as a withdrawal of the divine support, ^vll that there is now actually of existence in the imiverse, we conceive as having virtually existed, prior to crea- tion, in the Creator; and in imagining the universe to be annihilated by its Author, we can only imagine this, as the retractation of an outward energy into power. All this shows how impossible it is for the human mind to think aught that it thinks, as non-existent either in time j)ast or in time future. [^ Our inability to think, what we have once conceived existent in Time, as in time becoming non-existent, corre- oiir inability to think spouds with our inability to think, what wi- have augiitasextnuied iiom conccivcd cxistcnt iu Space, as in space becoming space gives till' luw of . ..^ i- • 11 Litimate incompres- non-cxistcut. ^^ c Cannot realize it to thought, ^ibilil>■. that a thing should be extriuled, either from the one quantity or the other. Hence, under exten- sion, the law of Ultimate Incompressibility ; under protension, the law of Cause and Effect.] We have been hitherto speaking only of one inconceivable extreme 1 Supplied fri>in /)-5'imi«ii.«, p. Cijf) — Ki» 70 654 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XL. of the conditioned, in its application to the category of existence in the category of time, — the extreme of absolute com- The infinite regress mencement ; the other is equally incotnprehen- of Time no less iucon- .,, ^\ ^ • ^-i ,..,.. ceivabie than its ab- ^'^^^' ^'^^^ '"' ^^^ extreme ot mhnite regress or *^oiute commencement. non-commencement. With this latter we have, however, at present nothing to do. [ J Indeed, as not obtrusive, the Infinite figures far less in the theatre of mind, and exerts a far inferior influence in the modification of thousrht than the Absolute. It is, in flict, both distant and deUtescent ; and in place of meeting us at every turn, it requires some exertion on our part to seek it out.] It is the former alone, — it is the inability we experience of annihilating in thought an exist- Our inability to con- cuce in time past, in other words, our utter ini- ceive existence as ab- potencc of conceiving its absolute commence- •solutely beginning in . , . -, , . time, constitutes the "'^"t' ^^^^t constitutes and explams the whole phenomenon of cans- phaenomcnon of causaHtv. An object is pre- *''^y- sented to our observation which has phaenom- enally begun to be. Well, we cannot realize it in thought that the object, that is, this determinate complement of existence, had really no being at any past moment ; because this supposes that, once thinking it as existent, we could again think it as non-existent, which is for us impossible. What, then, can we do : Tliat the plireiiomenon presented to us began, as a phaenomenon, to be, — tiiis we know by experience ; but that the elements of its existence only began, when the phaenomenon they constitute came into being, — this we are wholly unable to represent in thought. In these circumstances, how do we proceed ? — How must we proceed ? There is only one jjossible mode. We are compelled to believe that the object (that is, a certain quale and quantum of being) whose phaenomenal rise into existence we have witnessed, did really exist, prior to this lise, under other forms ; ^ [and by/omi, be it observed, I mean any mode of existence, conceivable by ns or not]. But to say that a thing previously existed under diiFerent forms, is only in other words to say, that a thing had causes. I have already noticed to you the en-or of philosoj)hers in supposing, Of Second Causes that anything can have a single cause. Of there must be at least t i ^ o c^ t^ ^ n ■, course, 1 speak only of Second Causes. Of the a concurrence ot two, . * • _ . ^^ ■^ to constitute an etrect^ causatiou of the Deity we can form jio possible conception. Of second causes, I say, there must almost always be at least a concurrence of two to constitute an effect. Take the example of vapor. Here to say that heat is the cause of evaporation, is a very inaccurate, — at least a very inadequate ex- 1 Supplied from D/scimions, p. 621.— Ed. 2 Supplied from Divimxionx, p. fi21 — Kd, Lect. XL. METAPHYSICS. 55ft pression. Water is as much the cause of evaporation as heat. But heat and water together are the causes of the phsenomenon. Nay, there is a third concause which we have forgot, — the atmosphere. Now, a cloud is the result of these three concurrent causes or con- stituents ; and, knowing this, we find no difficulty in carrying back the complement of existence, which it contains prior to its appear- ance. But on the hypothesis, that we are not aware wliat are the real constituents or causes of the cloud, tlie human mind must still perforce suppose some unknown, some hypothetical, antecedents, into which it mentally refunds all the existence which the cloud is thought to contain. Nothing can be a greater error in itself, or a more fertile cause of delusion, than the common doctrine, that the To suppose that the causal judgment is elicited only when we appre- causai ju.igment is j^^^^^^ objects in consccution, and uniform conse- elicited only by objects . ^r- in uniform coiisecu- cution. Of course, the observation of such suc- tion, iH erroneous. cession prompts and enables us to assign ])articu- lar causes to particular effects. But this consid- eration ought to be carefully distinguished from the law of Caus- .'ility, absolutely, which consists not in the em|)irical attribution of this phsenomenon, as cause, to that phaenoraenou as effect, but in the universal necessity of which Ave are conscious, to think causes for every event, wliether that event stand isolated by itself, and be by us referable to no other, or whether it be one in a series of successive phaniomena, which, as it were, spontaneously arrange themselves under the relation of effect and cause. [^Of no plue- nomenon, as observed, need we think tlie cause; but of every ])ha'- nomenon, must we think a cause. The former we may learn through a process of induction and generalization ; the latter wc 7nust always and at once admit, constrained by the condition of Relativity. On this, not sunken rock, Dr. Brown and others have been shipwrecked.] This doctrine of Causality seems to me preferable to any other, for the following, among other, reasons: In the first jtlace, to explain tlii' jihienonienon ot liie Causal .ludginent, it ])ostulates no new, no extraordi- The author's doc- naiv, no express principle. It does not even trin,. of Causality, to i^,x\\\A upmi a ])Ositive power ; for. while it shows '\rFrorait8 8iraplic- ^''•"'^ ^''*' pli'<""i"«-non in .,uestioii is only one of ity. a class, it assigns, .as their common cause, only a negativ(> impotence. In this, it stands advan- tageously contrasted with the one other tlu-ory which saves the 1 Supplied from Dhru-.^iiin^, p. t)22. — Ki>. 556 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XI* phaenomenon, but which saves it only by the hypothesis of a special principle, expressly devised to account for this phsenonieiion alone. Nature never works by more, and more complex instruments than are necessary ; — ixrjSlv TrepiTTco? ; and to assume a particular force, to perform what can be better explained by a general imbecility, is contrary to every rule of philosophizing. But, in the second place, if there be postulated an express and j^ositive affirmation of intelligence to account verting s ep i- ^^^. ^j^^ ^^^. ^|^_^^ existence cannot absolutely cism. "' commence, we must equally postulate a counter affirmation of intelligence, positive and express, to explain the coun- ter fxct^ that existence cannot infinitely not commence. -The one necessity of mind is equally strong as the other; and if the one be a positive doctrine, an express testimony of intelligence, so also must be the othei-. But they are contradictories ; and, as contra- dictories, they cannot both be true. On this theoi'y, therefore, the root of our nature is a lie! By the doctrine, on the contrary, which I propose, these contradictory phienomena are carried up into the common principle of a limitation of our fiiculties. Intelligence is shown to be feeble, but not folse ; our nature is, thus, not a lie, nor the Author of our nature a deceiver. In the third place, this sim|)ler and easier doctrine avoids a seri- ous inconvenience, which attaches to the more 3^ Avoiding the ai- difficult and coiuplcx. It is this : — To suppose teniatlves of fatalism . . , . , . . , ^ ... or inconsistency. ^ positivc and spccial pnnciplc of causality, IS to suppose, that there is expressly revealed to us, through intelligence, the fact that there is no free causation, that is, that there is no cause which is not itself merely an effect; exist- ence being only a series of determined antecedents and determined consequents. But this is an assertion of Fatalism. Such, however, most of the patrons of that doctrine will not admit. The assertion of absolute necessity, they are aware, is virtually the negation of a moral universe, consequently of the Moral Governor of a moral universe ; in a word, Atheism. Fatalism and Atheism are, indeed, convertible terms. The onlv valid arcfuments for the existence of a God, and for the immortality of the soul, rest on the ground of man's moral nature;' consequently, if that moral nature be annihi' lated, which in any scheme of necessity it is, every conclusion,, established on such a nature, is annihilated also. Aware of this, some of those who make the judgment of causality a special prin- ciple, — a positive dictate of intelligence, — find themselves com- pelled, in order to escape from the consequences of their doctrine, 1 See above, lect ii. p. 18 et se,. ther shown. ^^ rccoguizc as ncccssary m thought what is necessary in the universe of existence; it, on the contrary, founds this judgment merely on the im])Otencc of tlie mind to conceive either of two contradictories, and, as one or other of two contradictories must be true, though both cannot, it shows that there is no ground for inferrinii: from the inabilitv of tlie mind to conceive an alternative as possible, that such alternative is really im[)ossible. At the same time, if llie causal judgment be not an affirmation of mind, but merely an incapacity of positively thinking the contrary, it follows that such a negative jmlgment cannot stand in o)>position to the positive consciousness, — the affirmative deliver- ance, that we are truly the authors, — the responsible originators, of our actions, and not merely links in the adamantine series of effects and causes. It appears to ini- that it is only on this doctrine that "we can jthilosophically vindicate the liberty of the will, — that w ._■ can rationally assert to man a "fatis avolsa voluntas." How the will can possibly be free must remain to us, under the jiresent limi- tation of our faculties, wholly incomprehensil)le. We cannot con- ceive absolute commencement ; we cannot, therefore, conceive a freu 558 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XL, volition. But as little can we conceive the alternative on which liberty is denied, on which necessity is affirmed. And in favor of our moral nature, the fact that we are free, is given us in the con- sciousness of an uncompromising law of Duty, in the consciousness of our moral accountability ; and this fact of liberty cannot be redargued on the ground, that it is incomprehensible, for the doc- trine of the Conditioned proves, against the necessitarian, that something may, nay must, be true, of which the mind is wholly unable to construe to itself the possibility ; whilst it shows that the objection of incomprehensibility applies no less to the doctrine of fatalism than to the doctrine of moral freedom. If the deduction, therefore, of the Causal Judgmpnt, which I have attempted, should speculatively prove correct, it Avill, I think, afford a securer and more satisfactory foundation for our practical interests, than any other which has ever yet been promulgated,^ 1 Here, in the manuscript, occurs the fol- lowing sentence, with mark of deletion : — " But of this we shall have to speak, when we consider the question of the Liberty or Ne- cessity of our Volitions, under the Third Great Class of the Mental Phaenomena, — the Conative." The author does not, however, resume the consideration of this question in these Lectures. It will also be observed that Sir. W. Hamilton does not pursue the appli- cation of the Law of the Conditioned to the principle of Substance and Vhieuomenon, as proposed at the outset of the discussion. See above, p. 532 On Causality, and on Liberty and Necessity, see further in Discussions, p 625 et sf(j., and Appendix vi. — Ed. LECTUEE XLI. SECOND GREAT CLASS OF MENTAL PHJENOMENA — THETEKI^ INGS; THEIR CHARACTER, AND RELATION TO THE COGNI- TIONS AND CONATIONS. Having concluded our consideration of the First Great Class of the Pluenoniena revealed to us by conscious- Second Great Class ^^^^^ — ^j^^ phi^nomena of knowledge, — we are of mental phasnomena, , ,1 t /• 1 '^ /-n —the Feelings. '^ow to enter On the oecond oi these Classes, — the class which comprehends the phaenomena of Pleasur-e and Pain, or, in a single word, the phaenomena of Feeling.' Before, however, proceeding to a discussion of this class of mental appearances, considered in themselves, there are several questions of a preliminary character, whicli it is proper to dispose of. Of these, two natur:«lly present themselves in the Two preliminary threshold of our inquiry. The fii-st is — •luestions regarding -p. *i 1 C UI 1 -d • the Feelings. -L^o ^'■^^ phjBuomena 01 Pleasure and Pam con- stitute a distinct order of internal states, so that we are warranted in establishing the capacity of Feeling as one of the fundamental powei's of the human mind ? The second is, — In what position do the Feelings stand by refer ence to the Cogniticms and the Conations ; and, in j)articu]ar, whether ought the Feelings or the Conations to be considered tirst, in the order of science V Of these (questions, the former is by no means one that can be either snj)erseded or lightly dismissed. Tins is 1. Do the pluenoniena sliowu, both by the Very modern date at which of ricasure ami I'ain ^, 1 • i- ^1 i-> i- • ^ .1 ,. . the analvsis 01 tlie r eeuni^s into a separate class constitute a distinct or- ' '- ' derot internal states? of phieuoiuena was proposed, an<] by the contro- versy to which this analysis has given birth. Until a very recent epoch, the feelings were not recognized by any philosopher as the manifestations of any fundamental power. The distinction taken in the Peripatetic School, by which the 1 Bee above, lect. xi. p 12C. — Ed. 560 ^i !•: T A r 1 1 V s I c s . Lkct. XT.T. mental raodificatious were divided into Gnostic or Cognitive, and Orectic or Appetent, and the consequent reduc- The Feelings were tjo,^ of r^l\ i]^q faculties to the Facultas cogno- not recognized as the ^^^^^^^^. ^^^^^ ^j^^ Facultas appetendi, was the maiiifestatioii.s of any ... . fundamental power, distinction wliich was long niost universally until a ve y recent pe- jitrcvaleut, though undcr various, but usually "'^'^ less appropriate, denominations. For example, Peripatetic division ^j^^ modem distribution of the mental powers of the mental puse- . ^ ijojneua^ into those of the Understanding and those of the Will, or into Powers Speculative and Powers Active, — these are only very inadequate, and very incorrect, ver- sions of the Peripatetic analysis, which, as far as it went, was laud- able for its conception, and still more laudable for its expression. But this Aristotelic division of the internal states, into the two categories of Cognitions and of Appetencies, is exclusive of the Feelings, as a class coordinate with the two other genera ; nor was there, in antiquity, any other philosophy which accorded to the feelings the rank denied to them in the analysis of the Peripatetic school. An attemi)t has, indeed, been made to show^ that, by Plato, the capacity of Feeling was regarded as one of the three funda- mental powers ; but it is only by a total perversion of Plato's lan- guage, by a total reversion of the whole analogy of his psychology, that any color can be given to this opinion. Kant, as I have formerly observed, was the philosopher to whom Recognition of the ^^,g ^^.^ ^j^^g tri-logical classification. But it ee ings > mo em ousfht to be Stated, that Kant only placed the philosophers. " » ' ^ j l ^ keystone in the arch, whi(^li had been raised by ])revious philosophers among his countrymen. The phaiuomena of Feeling had, for thirty years prior to the reduction of Kant, attracted the attention of the German psychologists, and Suizer. Mendelssohn. j^g^^j j^y them been Considered as a separate class vaei, ner . < . ^ mental States. This had been done by Sulzer^ Eberhard. Plainer. •' in 1751, by Mendelssohn^ in 1763, by Kaestner'' in 1763 (?), by Meiners^ in 1773, by Eberhard^ in 1776, and by 1 See Vntersuchung uber den Urspniiig tier Sulzer; avec des Reflexions siir V Ongme du angenelintcn und unangenehmen Emfifindungen : Plaisir, par M. Kjestner, de I'Acadtimie Royale lirst published in the Memoirs of the ISerliu de Berlin, 1767, first published in the Me.noirs Academy, in 17.')! and 1752. See Verm, p/iilos. of the Academy in 1749. See below, p. 591. Schriften, v i. p. 1. Leipsic, 1800. Cf his —Ed. AUgcmtine Theorie der srhdyien Kitnste, 1771.— ■* See Abnss der Psyrhologie, 1713. — Ed Ed. [For a summary and criticism of the 5 .See Allgemeine Theorie des Denizens und former work, see Reinhold. tfber die hisherigen Em-pfindens, read before the Royal Society of Begrrffe vom Vergnngen. Yermischte Schriften, 'feerlin in 1776; new edit. 1786 Ct. Theorie dsr i. p. i98 Jena, 1796.] s^hSnen Wissenchaf ten, 2d ecVit. Halle, 1786. ^ 2 Brie/e ilber die Empfindungen, 1755. — Ed. Ed. 3 See Nouvelle Theurie des Plaisirs, par M. Lect. XLI. METAPHYSICS. 561 Plainer^ in 1780 (?). It remained, however, for Kant to establish, by his authority, the decisive trichotomy of the Kant,— the first to mental powcrs. In his Critique of Judgment establish the trichot- i tt u-i 7 tt ^-l -i 7 ^^\ j i-i • • i- omy of the meutai {Kritik cier Urtheilskraft), and; likewise, m his powers. Anthrojyology, he treats of the capacities of Feeling, apart from, and along with, the facul- ties of Cognition and Conation.- At the same time, he called attention to their great importance in the philosophy of mind, and more precisely and more explicitly than any of his prede- cessors did he refer them to a particular power, — a power which constituted one o the three fundamental jjhajnornena of mind. This important innovation necessarily gave rise to controversy. It is true that the Kantian reduction was ad- Kant's doctrine j^itted, not only by the great majority of tliose controverted bv some ii- • i>hi)osopher8ofuote. ^^'"*^ lollowed the impulsion which Kant had given to philosophy, but, likewise, by tlie great majority of the psychologists of Germany, who i-anged themselves in hostile' opposition to the principles of tlie Critical School. A reaction was, however, inevitable ; and while, on tlie one hand, the greater number were disposed to recognize the Feelings in their new rank, as one of the three grand classes of the mental phaenomena ; a smaller number, — but among them some philos- ophers of no mean account, — endeavored, however violent the procedure, to reannex them, as secondary manifestations, to one or other of the two coordinate classes, — the Cognitions and the Conations. Before proceeding to consider the objections to the classification in question, it is proper to premise a word in ref- Meaning of the term , . ^ , , • ■ , j-ggjjj erence to the meaning or the term by which the pha'iiomena of Pleasure and Pain are designated, — the term Fcdimj ; for this is an ambiguous expression, and on the accident of its ambiguity have been founded some of the reasons against the establishment of the class of phaenomena, which it is em- ployed to denote. It is easy to convey a clear and distinct knowledge of what is meant by a word, when that word denotes some object which has an exist- ence external to the mind. I have only to point out the object, and to say, that such or such a thing is signified by sucli or such a 1 The threefold division of the mental plia>- b i. SS 27—43, edit. 1793 Kant's Kr. rf. UnhriU- nomcna forms (he basis of the psycholofjical Icrafl wa» lirst published in 1790; t\ie Ant/iro- part of rialner's Nfue Anthmpologie, 179, thoufjh written befort? it, was only book ii The first edition (Anthropolo^f) ap- first publishod in 1799 — Ed. peared in 1772-4. ("f. Phil. Aphorismen. vol i. '^ See above, lect. xi. p 129 — Kd 71 562 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLL name ; for example, this is called a house^ that a rainbow^ this a horse^ that an oa, and so forth. In these cases, the exhibition of the reality is tantamount to a definition ; or, as Easy to convey a an old logician expresses it, " Cognitio oninis clear knowledge of the intuitiva est definitiva." ^ The same, however, meaning of words , iii- i i- i-ii- which denote ph«- ^^^'^^ "^^ ^""^"^^ "^ f^S*'^^"^^ ^o an object which lies nomena external to within the mind itself Wliat was easy in the **»e ™>n«i- one case becomes difficult in the other. For although he to whom I would explain the mean- ing of a term, by pointing out the object which it is intended to express, has, at least may hr.ve, that very object Not so with respect present in his mind, still I c. .not lay my finger to words denoting ob- . -r . . • i i . . ., ^ ,■ „.. on It, — 1 cannot arive it to e imine by the e\^» jects that lie withm ' o j j i- the mind. — to smell, to tastc, to hanc -'. Thus it is that misunderstandings frequently occur in refei'ence to this class of objects, inasmuch as one attaches a diffevcUv meaning to the word from that in which another uses it ; and we ought not to be surprised that, in the nomenclature of oui in^ntai phieftoraena, it has come to pass, that, in all languages, one xfenn nas become the sign of a plurality of notions, while at the same time a single notion is designated by a plurality of terms. This vacillation in the applica- tion and employment of language, as it originates in tlie impossi- bility, anterior to its institution, of approximating different minds to a common cognition of the same internal object ; so this ambiguity, when once established, reacts powerfuhy in perpetuating tlie same difficulty ; insomuch that a principal, ii' not the very greatest, im- pediment in the progress of the philosoi)her of mind, is the vague- ness and uncertainty of the instrument of thouccht itself A remark- able example of tliis, and one extending to all languages, is seen in the words most nearly correspondent to the very ee ing, e u i , indeterminate expression feeling. In English, Alfff(^ff(j, — ambigu- , . ,., ,, i n ' i 7 • i i- ■ ^ ^ this, like all others or a psychological application, was primarily of a purely physical relation, being originally employed to denote the sensations we experience through the sense of Touch, and in this meaning it still continues to be em- ployed. From this, its original relation to matter and the corporeal sensibility, it came, by a very natural analogy, to express our con- scious states of mind in general, but paiticularly in relation to the qualities of pleasure and pain, by which they are characterized. Such is the fortune of the term in English ; and precisely similar is • 1 Cf Melanchthon, Erotfmo/a Dialectica, Df Omnis intuitiva notitia est detinitio." — En Dffinitione, who quotes it as an old saying: [C'f. Keckermann, Opera, t- i. p. 198 ) ^ Vetus enim dictum est, et dignum memoria : Lect. XLl. METAPHYSICS. 568 that of the cognate term Gefulil in German. The same, at least a similar, liistory might be given of the Greek term accr&r]cn<;, and of the Latin sensus, sensatio, with their immediate and mediate deriva- tives in the different Romanic dialects of modern Europe, — the Italian, Spanish, French, and English dialects. In applying the term ftcling to the mental states, strictly in so far as these manifest the pliajnomena of pleasure and pain, it is, therefore, hardly necessary to observe, that the word is used, not in all the meanings in which ft can be employed, but in a certain definite relation, were it not that ft very unfair advantage has been taken of this ambiguity of the expression. Feelbig, in one meaning, is manifestly a cognition ; but this affords no ground for the ai-gument, that feeling^ in every signi- fication, is also a cognition. Tliis reasoning has however, been pro- posed, and that by a philosopher from whom so paltry a sophism was assuredly not to be expected. It being, therefore, understood that the word is ambiguous, and that it is only used because no preferal)le can be Can we discriminate fouud, the question must be determined by the in eon.o;ousnes9 cer- f ^^ disproof of the affirmation, — that'l am tain states which can- ,. . . not be reduced to those ^^^^ ^o discriminate in consciousness certain ofCognitiouor Coua- States, certain qualities of mind, which cannot ^'^" • be reduced to those either of Cognition or Cona- tion ; and that I can enable others, in like man- ner, to place themselves in a similar position, and observe for them- selves these states or qualities, which I call Fedlngs. Let us take .an example. In reading the story of Leonidas and his three hundred •Spartans at Thermopyla?, what do we experience? This qncRf ion decided i^ there nothing in the state of mind, which the in the ailiiinative by . . .-, .^ ■, ■, , . . narrative occasions, other than such as can be an appeal to experi- ' ciice. referred either to the cognition or to will and desire ? Our faculties of knowledixe are called certainly into exercise ; for this is, indeed, a condition of every other state. But is the exultation which we feel at this spectacle of lumian virtue, the joy which we experience at the temporary success, and the sorrow at tlie liiial destruction of this glorious band, — are these affections to be reduced to states either of cognition or of conation in either form ? Are they not feelings, — feelings partly of pleasure, partly of ])ain ? Take another, and a very familiar, instance. You are all probably acquainteii with the old ballad of Ghex'y Chase, and you probably recollect the fine verse of the oriiginal edition, so lamentably spoiled in the more modern versions : 564 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLI. " For Widdrini^ton my soul is sad, That ever he slain .sliould be, For when his legs were stricken off, He kneeled and fought on his knee." i Now, I ask you, again, is it possible, by any process of legitimate analysis, to carry up the mingled feelings, some pleasurable, some painful, Avhich are called up by this simple picture, into anything bearing the character of a knowledge, or a vohtion, or a desire ? If we cannot do this, and if we cannot deny the reality of such feel- ings, we are compelled to recognize them as belonging to an order of phaenomena, which, as they cannot be resolved into either of the other classes, must be allowed to constitute a third class by themselves. But it is idle to multiply examples, and I shall now proceed to con- sider the grounds on which some philosophers, Grounds on which and among these, M'hat is remarkable, a dis- objection has been tinguislied champion of the Kantian svstem, taken to the Kantian tt ^• ■, • " ciasHification of the ^'''^'■'^ endeavored to discredit the validity of the mental phaenomena. classification. Passing over the arguments which have been urged against the pov,'er of Feeling as a fundamental capacity of mind, in so far as these proceed merely on the ambiguities of language, I shall consider only the principal objections from the nature of the phaenomena themselves, which have been urged by the three principal opponents of the classification in question, — Cams, Weiss, and Krug. The last of these is the philosopher by whom these objections have been urged most explicitly, and with greatest force. I shall, therefore, chiefly confine myself to a consideration of the difficulties which he proposes for solution. I may premise that this philosopher (Krug), admitting only two fundamental classes of psychological pb.ienomena, — the Cognitions and the Conations, — goes so far as not only to maintain, that what have obtained, from other psychologists, the name of JFhelings, constitute no distinct and separate class of mental functions; but that the very supposition is absurd and even im- possible. " That such a power of feeling," he argues, ^ " is not even conceivable, if by such is understood a power 1 " For Wetharryngton my harte waa wo, though not exactly in language, in Krug's That ever he slay ne shulde be; Philosopkisches Lexikon, &rt. Seelenlcrdfle. The For when both his leggis wear hewj^ne author, in the same work, art. Gefukl, refers in to, 4o his Gruncllage zu einer neiuii Theorie der Ge- He knyled and fought on hys kne." fiMe, und des xogenannten Gefn/tisvermdgens, — Original VeTsi(m, in Percy's Reliques.— Kdnigsberg, 1823, for a fuller di.scussion of Ed. the question. See also above, lect. xi. p. 130. 2 This objection is given in substance, — £d. Lect. XLT. METAPHYSICS. 565 essentially different from the powers of Cognition and Conation," (thus I translate Vorstellungund Bestrebungscermogen), " is mani- fest from the following consideration The powers of c«>gnition and the powers of conation are, in propriety, to be regarded as two different fundamental ])owers, only because the operation of our mind exhibits a twofold direction of its whole activity, — one inwards, another outwards ; in consequence of which we are con- strained to distinguish, on the one hand, an Immanent, ideal or theoretical, and, on the other a Transeunt, real or pi-actical, activity. Xow, should it become necessary to interpolate between tliese two powers, a third ; consequently, to convert the original duplicity of our activity into a triplicity ; in this case, it would be requisite to attribute to the third power a third species of activity, the product of which would be, in fact, the Feelings. Now this activity of feel- ing must necessarily have either a direction inwards, or a direction outwards, or both directions at once, or hnally neither of the two, that is, no direction. at all ; for apart from the directions inwards and outwards, there is no direction conceivable. But, in the first case, the activity of feeling would not be different from the cognitive activ- ity, at least not essentially ; in the second case, there is nothing but a certain appetency manifested under the form of a feeling ; in the third, the activity of feeling would be only a combination of theoret- ical and ])ractical activity ; consequently, there remains only the sup- position that it has no direction. We confess, however, that an hypothetical activity of such a kind we cannot imagine to ourselves as a real activity. An activity without any determinate direction, would be in tact directed upon nothing, and a power conceived as the source of an activity, directed upon nothing, appears nothing better than a powerless power, — a wholly inoperative force, in a word, a nothiu'i'." — So far our objectionist. In answer to this reasoning, I would observe, that its cogency dc pends on tlii-;, — iliat the suppositions whidi it Criticized. 1. Tiie makes, and afterwards excludes, are exhatistive suppositions on which .^^^^ complete. But this is not the case. '' For, the rcaiioning pro- . , ,. . . , i ceeds, are not exhaust- '" P^'^ce of two energies, an immanent au.l a ive. transeunt, wo may competently suppose thre«', — vvc may nuppose .j^ ineuut, uii iiiimanciit, and a transeunt. 1°, three kinds of energy, r^^^^ Ineuiit cncrgv might be considered as an act tneunt, Immanent, • • and Trauscuut. of mind, directed upon objects in order to know them, — to bring them within the sphere of con- sciousness, — mentally to approi>riate them ; 2°, The Immanent ener- gy might be considered as a kind of internal fluctuation about the objects, which had been brought to representation and thought, — a 566 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLI. pleasurable or a painful aifection caused by them, in a word, a feel- ing ; and 3°, The Transeunt energy might be considered as an act tending towards the object in order to reach it, or to escape from it. This hypothesis is quite as allowable as that in opi)osition to which it is devised, and were it not merely in relation to an hypothesis, which rests on no valid foundation, it would be better to consider the feelings not as immanent activities, but as immanent passivities. " But, in point of fact, we are not warranted, by any analogy of our spiritual nature, to ascribe to the mental powers 2. But we are not a direction either outwards or inwards ; on the warranted to ascribe contrary, they are rather the principles of our to the mental powers . "^ /» i • i i • a direction either out- internal States, of which we can only miproperly ward.-' or inwards. predicate a direction, and this only by relation to the objects of the states themselves. For directions are relations and situations of external things; but of such there are none to be met with in the internal world, except by anal- ogy to outer objects. In our Senses, which have reference to the ex- ternal world, there is an outward direction when we perceive, or when we act on external things ; whereas, we may be said to turn inwards, when we occupy ourselves with what is contained within the mind itself, be this in order to compass a knowledge of our proper nature, or to elevate ourselves to other objects still more worthy of a moral intelligence. Rigorously considered, the feelings are in this meaning so many directions, — so many turnings towards those objects which determine the feelings, and whicth please or dis- please us. Take, for example, the respect, the reverence, we feel in the contemplation of the higher virtues of human nature ; this feel- ing is an immanent conversion on its object. " The argument of the objectors is founded on the hypothesis, that as in the external world, all is action and reac- .3. Tiie argument i\on — all is working and counterworking, — all founded on the hv- . ' . i , • • ])othesi8, that what is i*» attraction and repulsion ; so in the internal true of inanimate, is world, there is Only One operation of objects on true of animated na- ^j^^ mind, and One Operation of the mind on ob- ture; and would leave • , ^i lay with the desire to join in it; it forms the bridge, and contains the motive, by which we are roused from mere knowledge to ajjpetency, — to conation, by reference to which we move ourselves so as to attain the end iu view. " Thus we find, in actual life, the Feelings intermediate between the Cognitions and the Conations. And this The Feelings inter- relative jjosition of these several powers is nec- tnediate between the . , , . ... .,„„„;,.„„„ , ,,^ essary; without the previous cognition, tliere <- ognjtions ajid ( ona- •' ' ' o ' tions. could be neither feeling nor conation ; and with- out tlie ])revious leeling there could be no cona- tion. Without some kind or another of complacency with an object, there could be no tendency, no pretension of the mind to attain this object as an end; and we could, therefore, determine ourselves to no overt action. The mere cognition leaves us cold and unexcited ; the awakened feeling infuses warmth and liie into us and our action; it sujjplies action witli an interest, and, without an interest, there is for us no voluntary action possible. Without the intervention of feeling, the cognition stands tlivorced from the conation, and, apart from feeling, all conscious endeavor after any- thing would be altogether incomprehensible. "That the manifestations of the Conative Powers are determined by the Feelings, is also aj)parent from the following reflection. The volition or «lesire tends towaiils a something, and this something That the Conative 568 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLT- is only given us in and through some faculty or other of cogni- tion. Now, were the mere cognition of a thing sufficient of itself to rouse our conation, in that Powers are determined ■,^ ■• , .1 by the Feelings fur- case, all that was known in the same manner and ther shown. in the same degree, would become an equal ob- Mere cognition not jg^^ ^f (jgsire or will. But we covet one thing; sufficient to rouse Con- , , /-a .1 •^- ti we eschew another. On the supposition, like- wise, that our conation was only regulated by our cognition, it behooved that every other individual besides should be desirous of the object which I desire, and be 1. Because all ob- ^esirous of it also SO long as the cognition of the jects known in the ^ same manner and de- object remained the same. But one person pur- gree, are not equal ob- sues what another pcrson flies ; the same person jects of desire or will. ^^^^ yeams after something which anon he 2. Because different loathes. And why ? It is manifest that here individuals are desir- , i-i-i -ii ^-^ i-i PAW 4. K- . there lies hid some very variable quantity, which, ous of different objects. •' ... when united with the cognition, is capable of rousing the powers of conation into activity. But such a quantity is given, and only given, in the feelings, that is, in our consciousness of the agreeable and disagreeable. If we take this element, — this influence, — this quantity. — into account, the whole anomalies are solved. We are able at once to understand why all that is thought or cognized with equal intensity, does not, with equal intensity, afiect the desires or the will ; why dififerent individuals, with the same knowledge of the same objects, are not similarly attracted or repelled; and why the same individual does not always pursue or fly the same object. This is all explained by the fact, that a thing may please one person and displease another; and may now be pleasurable, now painful, and now indifferent, to the same person. " J'rom these interests for different objects, and from these oppo- site interests which the same object determines. Importance of a cor- j^ ^m. different powcvs, are we alone enabled ta rect understanding of t ^ •■^ ^ ^^ ^ i *]:„ , \ render comprehensible the change and conflic the nature and influ- ' _ ^ ^ eace of the Feelings. tion of our dcsires, the vacillations of our voli- tions, the warfare of the sensual principle with the rational, — of the flesh with the spirit; so that, if the nature and influence of the feelings be misunderstood, the problems* most important for man are reduced to insoluble riddles. "According to this doctrine, the Feelings, placed in the midst between the powers of Cognition and the powers of Conation, per- form the functions of connecting principles to these two extremes ; and thus the objection that has been urged against the feelings as a <5lass coordinate with the cognitions and the conations, — on the Lect. XLI. METAPHYSICS. 569 ground that they afford no principle of mediation, is of all objeo tions the most futile and erroneous. Our conclusion, therefore, is, that as, in our actual existence, the feelings find Place of the theory their place after the cognitions, and before the of the Feelings in the . ... /- • i i , . , conations, — so, in the science oi mind, the ecieuce of mmd. ' ' ' theory of the Feelincrs oucrht to follow that of our faculties of Knowledge, and to precede that of our faculties of Will and Desire."^ Notwithstanding this, various even of those psychologists who have adoj)ted the Kantian trichotomy, have departed fi-om the order which Kant had correctly indicated, and have averted it in every possible manner, — some treating of the feelings in the last place, while others have considered them in the first. The last preliminary question which presents itself is — Into what subdivisions are the Feelings themselves to be III. Into what .ub- distributed ? lu Considering this question, I divisions are the Feel- t^ • • i • i i ings to be distributed? ^'^''^^^ "'"^^ state some of the divisions which nave been j)roposed by those i)hilosophers who have recognized the capacity of feeling as an ultimate, a fundamental, phaenomenon of mind. This statement will be necessarily limited to the distributions adojjted by the psychologists of Germany; for, strange to say, the Kantian reduction, though prevalent in the Empire, has remained either unknown to, or disregarded by, those who have speculated on the mind in France, Italy, and Great Brit- ain. To commence with Kant himself. In the Critique of Judgmerd^ he enumerates three si)ecificall\' different kinds Kant. , 1 • J- 1 • 1 of complacency, the objects ol whicli are sever- ally the Agreeable {das Angenehm), the Beautiful, and the Good. In his treatise of Anthropology,'^ subsequently published, he divides- the feelings of ])leasure and pain into two great classes; — 1°, The Sensuous; 2°, The Intellectual. The former of these classes is again subdivided into two subordinate kinds, inasmuch as the feel- ing arises either through the Senses (Sensual Pleasures), or througli the Imagination (Pleasures of Taste). The latter of these classis is also subdivided into stibordinate kinds; for our Intellectual Feel- ings are connected either with the notions of the Understanding, or with the ideas of Reason. I may notice that in his published man- ual of Anthropology, the Intellectual Feelings of the fii-st subdivis- ion, — the feelings of the Understanding, are not treated of in detail. 1 Biunde, Vrrsuch d empirischtn Piycholnpir, 2(5. Wfrk'. iv. p M — Ed. ii. r-08. p. «0— (^4 — Kd. 3 B. ii llVrX^, vii p U:> — Ed. 570 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLr. Schulze Hillebraud. Gottlob Schulze, thougli a decided antagonist of the Kantian philosophy in general, adopts the threefold clas- sification into the Cognitions, the Feelings, and the Conations ; but he has preferred a division of the Feelings dif- ferent from that of the philosopher of Konigsberg. These he dis- tributes into two classes, — the Corporeal and the S])iritual; to which he annexes a third class made up of these in combination, — the Mixed Feehngs. Ilillebrand^ divides the Feelings, in a thi-eefold manner, into those of States, those of Cognitions, and those of Appetency (will and desire) ; and again into Real, Sympathetic, and Ideal. Herbart^ distributes them into three classes ; — 1°, Feelings which are determined by the character of the thing felt ; 2°, Feelings which depend on the disposi- ^ 3°, Feelings which are intermediate and mixed. (of Leipzig, — the late Carus) thus distributes them. "Pure feeling," he says, "has relation either to Reason, and in this case we obtain the Intellect- ual Feelings ; or it has reMion to Desire and Will, and in this case we iiave the moral feelings." Between these two classes, the Intel- lectual and the Moral Feelings, there are placed the Esthetic Feel- ings, or feelings of Taste, to which he also adds a fourth class, that of the Religious Feelings. Such are a few of the more illustrious divisions of the Feelings into their primary classes. It is needless to enter at present into any discussion of the merits and demerits of these distributions. I shall hereafter endeavor to show you, that they may be divided, in the first place, into two great classes, — the Higher and the Lower, — the Mental and the Corporeal, in a word, into Sentiments and Sensutions. Herbart. tion of the feeling mind ; Carus Cai'us. 1 Anthropnlngie, 5 144-146, p. 2Q5etseq., 3d edit. 16"26 —Ed '■i Anthropologie, ii. 283. — Ed. " Lehrbuch zur Psyehologie, § 98 Werke. vol. T. p. 72 On the divisions of the Feelings mentioned in the text, see Biunde, Yersuch einer systematischen Behandlung der empirischen Psychologic, ii. § 210, p. 74, edit. 1831. Cf. Scheldler, Psychologic, § 64, p. 443, edit. 1833. — Ed. 4 Psychologic, Werke, i. 428, edit. Leipsic. 1808. — Ed. LECTURE XLII. THE FEELINGS. — THEORY OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. In our last Lecture, we commenced the consideration of the Sec- ond Great Class of the Mental Phainomena, — The Feelings. ^ • i the pha^nomena of Feeling, — the pha^nomena of Pleasure and Pain. Though manifestations of the same indivisible subject, and them- selves only possible through each other, the three Cognition., Feelings ^j^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^j phaiuomena still admit of a valid and Conation, — their ,....., essential peculiarities. discrunination in theory, and requiie severally a separate consideration in the j)hilosophy of mind. I formerly stated to you, that though knowledge, though ■consciousness, be the necessary condition not only of the j)liaMiomena of Cognition, but of the ])hieuomena of Feeling, and of Conation, yet the attempts of philosophers to reduce the two latter classes to the first, and thus to constitute the faculty of Cognition into the one fun • . ^ lerent to leel hunger and thirst, as states ot pain,. and to desire or w'ill their appeasement ; and still more different is it to desire or will their appeasement, and to enjoy the pleasure afforded in the act of this appeasement itself Pain and pleasure, as feelings, belong exclusively to the present ; whereas cona- tion has reference only to the future, for conation is a longing, — a striving, either to maintain the continuance of the present state, or to exchange it for another. Thus, conation is not the feeling of pleasure and pain, but the power of overt activity, which pain and pleasure set in motion. But although, in theory, the Feelings are thus to be discriminated from the Desires and Volitions, they are, as I have frequently ob- /.KCT. XLTI. METAPHYSICS. 573 served, not to be considered as really divided. Both are condition> of perhaps all our mental states; and while the Cognitions go priii- cipally to determine our speculative sphere of existence, the Feelinirs and the Conations more especially concur in regulating our practical. In ray last Lecture, I stated the grounds on which it is expedient to consider the phajnomena of Feeling prior to What are the general disCUSsing those of Coiiation ; — but before en- conditions wliich de- ^ . ^ , . , . ,. , i ,^ , .. . . tenng on the consideration or tlie several feel- termine the existence _ ° of rjeasureaudraiu? iugs, and before staling under what heads, and in what order, these are to be arranged, I think it proper, in the first place, to take up the general question, — What are the general conditions which determine the existence of Pleasure and Pain ; for pleasure and ])ain are the i)h:enoinena which constitute the essential attribute of feeling, under all its modifications? In the consideration of this (piestion, I shall pursue the following order : — I shall, first of all, state the abstraci Theory of Pleasure and Pain, in other words, enounce the fundamental law by which these phaenomena are gov. eincd, in all their manifestations. I shall, then, take an historical retrospect of the opinions of philosoi)hers in regard to this subject, in order to show in what relation the doctrine I would support stands to previous speculations. This being accomplished, we shall then be prepared to inquire, how fixr the theory in question is borne out by the special modifications of Feeling, and how far it affords us a com- mon principle on which to account for the phaenomena of Pleasure and Pain, under every accidental form they may assume. I proceed, therefore, to deliver in somewhat abstruse formulae, the theory of pleasure. The meaning of these for- 1. Tho tiiocry of j^^^j].^, j (..,„„^,t exT»ect sliould be fullv appre- Mated in thf abstract. heiuled. 111 tlic first instance, — tar less can I expect that the validity of the theory should be recognized, before the universality of its application shall be illus- trated in examples. 1. ^laii exists only as he lives; as an intelligent and sensible being, he consciously lives, but this only as he consci- First motni'iifiim. • ' tt • • i oiisly energizes. Human existence is only a more general expression for human life, and human life only a more general expression for the sum of energies, in which that life is realized, ai;d through which it is manifested in consciousness. In a word, life is energy, and conscious energy is conscious life. ^ 1 Cf Aristotle, Eth. iVk. ix.9; x. 4 —Ed. pns.oive; partly tending to rest, partly to J.,os(*ius, Lexikon v. Yercnil^fn ; theory of cessa- action. — Memorandum. tioii mill activity; makes partly active, partly 574 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XLII In explanation of this paragraph, and of those which are to follow, I may observe, that the term energy^ which is equivalent to act^ activity^ or operation^ is here used to comprehend also all the mixed states of action and passion, of which we are conscious ; for, inasmuch as we are conscious of any modification of mind. Comprehension of ,i • ., ", . . _ the term ener there IS nccessarily more than a mere passivity of the subject; consciousness itself implying at least a reaction. Be this, however, as it may, the nouns energy^ act, ac- timty, operation, with the correspondent verbs, are to be understood to denote, indifferently and in general, all the processes of our higher and our lower life, of which we are conscious. ^ This being premised, I proceed to the second proposition. II. Human existence, human life, human energy, is not unlimited, but on the contrary, determined to a certain num- Second. .. i ber of modes, through which alone it can possibly be exerted. These different modes of action are called, in different x^2iX\o\\%, p)0'wers, facilities, capacities, dispositions, habits. In reference to this paragraph, it is only necessary to recall to your attention, that jyower denotes either a faculty or xp ana ion o ^ capacity; faculty denotes a power of acting, terms, — jjovver, facul- i ./ ^ ,/ .7 ^ ^ i o-> ty, etc. capacity a power of being acted upon or suffer- ing ; dispositio?i, a natuial, and habit, an ac- quired, tendency to act or suffer. ^ In reference to habit, it ought however to be observed, that an acquired necessarily supposes a natural tendency. Habit, therefore, comprehends a disposition and something supervening on a disposition. The disposition, which at first was a feebler tendency, becomes, in the end, by custom, that is, by a frequent repetition of excited energy, a stronger tendency. Disposition is the rude original, habit is the perfect consummation. III. Man, as he consciously exists, is the subject of pleasure and pain ; and these of various kinds : but as man only Third. . , . . , ^ consciously exists in and through the exertion of certain determinate powers, so it is only through the exertion of these powers that he becomes the subject of pleasure and pain ; each power being in itself at once the faculty of a specific energy, and a capacity of an appropriate pleasure or pain, as the concomitant of that energy. IV. The energy of each power of conscious Fourth. . , . . , existence having, as its reflex or concomitant, an appropriate pleasure or pain, and no pain or pleasure being competent 1 Here a written interpolation — Occupation, ce.sses, whether active or passive.] See below. exercise, perhaps better [expressions than en- p. 595. — Ed. ergy, as applying equally to all mental pro- 2 See above, lect. x. p. 123. — EjD. Lect. XLn. METAPHYSICS 575 to man, except as the concomitant of some determinate energy of life, the all-important question arises, — What is the general law under which these counter-phsenomena arise, in all their special manifestations ? In reference to this proposition, I would observe that pleasure and pain are op{)osed to each other as contraries, not Pleasure and Pain ^^ contradictories, that is, the affirmation of tlie opposed as contraries, .... . „ , , , , not as contradictories. o"® implies the negation of the other, but the neofation of the one does not infer the affirnia- lion of the other ; for there may be a third or intermediate state, which is neither one of pleasure nor one of pain, l)ut one of in- difference. Whether such a state of indifference do ever actually exist ; or whether, if it do, it be not a complex state in which are blended an equal complement of pains and pleasures, it is not neces- sary, at this stage of our progress, to inquire. It is sufficient, in con- sidering the quality of pleasure as one opposed to the quality of pain, to inquire, what are the proximate causes which determine them : or, if this cannot be answered, what is the general fact or law which regulates their counter-manifestation ; and if such a law can be discovered for the one, it is evident that it will enable us also to explain the other, for the science of contraries is one. I now pro- ceed to the fifth proposition. V. The answer to the question proposed is : — the more perfect, the more pleasurable, the energy : the more Fifth. . , \ . . 1 imperfect, the more pamful. In reference to this proposition, it is to be observed that tlie an- swer here given is precise, but inexplicit ; it is the enouncement of the law in its most abstract form, and requires at once develo|)nient and explanation. This I shall endeavor to give in tlie following propositions. VI. The perfection of an energy is twofold ; 1", By relation to the power of which it is the exertion, and 2", By Sixth. \ . , , . , , . '. . '' relation to the object about wlucli it is conver- sant. The former relation affords wliat may be called its ttubjectivey the latter what may be called its objective^ condition. Tlie explanation and development of the preceding propi>siti((n is sriven in the followinri:. VII. By relation to its power : — An energy is perfect, when it is tantamount to the full, and not to more than the full, complement of free or spontaneous energy, which the power is capable of exerting ; an energy is imperfect, either 1°, When the power is restrained from putting fortli the whole amount of energy it would otherwise tend to do, or, 2°, When it is 576 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLII. .stimulated to put forth a larger aiuount than that to which it is spon- taneously disposed. The amount or quantum of energy in the case •of a single power is of two kinds, — 1°, An intensive, and 2°, A pro- tensive ; the former expressing the higher degree, the latter the longer duration, of the exertion. A perfect energy is, therefore, that which is evolved by a power, both in the degree and for the continuance to which it is competent without straining ; an imperfect energy, that which is evolved by a power in a lower or in a higher degree, for a shorter or for a longer continuance, than, if left to itself, it would freely exert. There are, thus, two elements of the perfection, and, consequently, two elements of the pleasure, of a sim- ple energy : — its adequate degree and its adequate duration; and four ways in which such an energy may be imperfect, and, conse- quently, painful ; inasmuch as its degree may be either too high, or too low ; its duration either too long, or too short. When we do not limit our consideration to the simple energies of individual j^owers, but look to complex states, in which a plurality of powers maybe called simultaneously into action, we have, besides •the intensive and protensive quantities of energy, a third kind, to ■wit, the extensive quantity. A state is said to contain a greater amount of extensive energy, in proportion as it* forms the comple- ment of a greater number of simultaneously cooperating powers. This complement, it is evident, may be conceived as made up either of energies all intensively and protensively perfect and pleasurable, or of energies all intensively and protensively imperfect and painful, or of energies partly jierfect, partly imperfect, and this in every combination afforded by the various perfections and imperfections of the intensive and protensive quantities. It may be here noticed, that the intensive and the two other quantities svand always in an inverse ratio to each other ; that is, the higher the degree of any energy, the shorter is its continuance, and, during its continuance, the more completely does it constitute the whole mental state, — does it engross the whole disposable consciousness of the mind. The maximum of intensity is thus the minimum of continuance and of extension. So much for the perfection, and proportional pleasure, of an energy or state of energies, by relation to the power out of which it is elicited. This paragraph requires, I think, no com- mentary. VIII. By relation to the object (and by the term object, ue it observed, is here denoted every objective cause Eighth. , 1 • 1 -1 • -I • • \ by which a power is determined to activity), about which it is conversant, an energy is perfect, when this object is of such a character as to afford to its power the condition requi- Lect. XLU. METAPHYSICS. 577 site to let it spring to full spontaneous activity ; imperfect, when the object is of such a character as either, on the one hand, to stimulate the power to a degree, or to a continuance, of activity beyond its maximum of free exertion ; or, on the other hand, to thwart it in its tendency towards this its natural limit. An object is, consequently, pleasurable or painful, inasmuch as it thus determines a power to perfect or to imperfect energy. But an object, or complement of objects simultaneously presented, may not only determine one but a plurality of powers into coac- tivity. The complex state, which thus arises, is pleasurable, in pro- portioii as its constitutive energies are severally more perfect ; pain- ful, in proportion as these are more imperfect; and in proportion as an object, or a complement of objects, occasions the average ])er- fection or the average imperfection of the complex state, is it, in like manner, pleasurable or painful. TX. Pleasure is, thus, the result of certain harmonious relations, — of certain agreements ; pain, on the contrary, ^ '"* '■ the effect of certain unharmonious relations — Definitions of Pleas- „ . ,. , rr^. , i i • ,„. 01 certam disagreements. Ihe pleasurable is, ure and Pain. » ' ' therefore, not inappropriately called the agree- able^ the painful the disagreeable ,■ and, in conformity to this doc- trine, ]»leasure and pain may be thus defined : Pleasure is a reflex of the spontaneous and unimpeded exertion of a power, of whose energy we are conscious.' Pain, a reflex of the overstrained or repressed exertion of such a power. I shall say a word in illustration of these definitions. Taking pleasure, — pleasure is defined to be the reflex The definition of ^f energy, and of perfect energy, and not to be Pleasure illustrated. .^, ' ^i /> >.• r> -^ i/^ , ,., ,, ^ either ener<>v or the perfection of enertjrv itself, I. Pleasure the rene.\ . . o. ' of energy. — ii"fl ^vhv ? It is iiot simply defined an energy, exertion, or act, because some energies are not 2)leasurablc, — being either painful or inditrerent. It is not simply defined the perfection of an energy, because we can easily separate in thought the perfection of an act, a conscious act, from any feel- ing of })leasure in its performance. The same holds true, mxitatis nrmtandis^ of the definition of i)ain, as a reflex of imperfect energy. Again, pleasure is defined the leflex of the spontaneous and unim- peded, — of free and unimpeded, exertion of a power, of whose 1 Thi.s i!< substantially the definition of Aris- book of the same treatise, and wliich perhaps fotle, whose doctrine, as expounded in the properly belongs to the Ett'lrminn Ethirs, the 10th book of Ihe Nirowarhran Ethics, is more pleasure is identified with thecuergy itself. — fully stated below, p. 584. In the le^s accu- Kd. rate dissertation, which occurs in the 7th 7:? 578 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLIL energy we are conscious. Here the terra spontaneous refers to the subjective, the term unimpeded to the objective, 2. Spontaneous and n ^- mi- .1 , , . periection. iouchuiff the term spontaneous, unimpeded. ■*• o 1 r every power, all conditions being sui)plied, and all impediments being removed, tends, of its proper nature and without effort, to put forth a certain determinate maximum, intens- ive and protensive, of free energy. This determinate maximum of free energy, it, therefore, exerts spontaneously : if a less amount than this be actually put forth, a certain quantity of tendency has been forcibly repressed ; whereas, if a greater than this has been actually exerted, a certain amount of nisus has been forcibly stimu- lated in the power. The term spontaneously, therefore, provides, that the exertion of the power has not been constrained beyond the proper limit, — the natural maximum, to which, if left to itself, it freely spriugs. Again, in regard to the term unimpeded, — this stipulates that the power should not be checked in the spring it would thus spon- taneously make to its maximum of energy, that is, it is supposed that the conditions requisite to allow this spring have been supplied, and that all impediments to it have been removed. This postulates of course the presence of an object. The definition further states, that the exertion must be that of a power of whose eneigy we are conscious. This requires no illustration. There 3. Of which we are • .i a.- •^- £• i • \. t are powers in man, the activities oi which he conscious. '■ beyond the sphere of consciousness. But it is of the very essence of pleasure and pain to be felt, and there is no feeling out of consciousness. What has now been said of the terras used in the definition of pleasure, renders all comment superfluoua on the parallel expressions employed in that of pain. ,, On this doctrine it is to be observed, that there are given differ- ent kinds of pleasure, and different kinds of Pleasure, -Positive -^ j^ ^^^ g^.^^ . ^^^^^ ^^^ twofold, InaS- and Negative. '■ ^ much as each is either Positive and Absolute, or Negative and Relative. In regard to the former, the mere negation of pain does, by relation to pain, constitute a state of pleasure. Thus, the removal of the toothache replaces us in a state which, though one really of indifference, is, by contrast to our previous agony, felt as pleasurable. This is negative or relative pleasure. Positive or absolute pleasure, on the contrary, is all that pleasure which we feel above a state of indifference, and which is, therefore, prized as a good in itself, and not simply as the removal of an evil. On the sarae principle, pain is also divided into Positive or Absa r — — » / Lect. xlii. metaphysics. 579 lute, and into Negative or Relative. But, in the second place, there is, moreover, a subdivision of positive pain into rain,— Positive and that Avhich accompanies a repression of the ^*''*'^*'' spontaneous energy of a power, and that which Positive pain, sub- . .. , ..i., rr- , i ,. < ^ ,. ., , IS coniomed with its eitort, when stimulated to divided. -J _ ' over-activity. ' I proceed now to state certain corollaries, which flow immediately from the preceding doctrine. In the first place, as the powers which, in an individual, are either preponderantly strong by nature, or have become Corollaries from pre- i ,i . i, i i^-^ i ^ preponderanth^ strong bv habit, have compara- cedini,' doctrine. i_ * •' o ► ' I 1. The individual tively more perfect energies; so the pleasures will be disposed to ex- which accompany these will l)e proportionally ercise his more vigor- intense and enduring. But this beim; the case, ous powers. , .,.., , .,,, ,. , . .^,, .„ the individual will be disposed principally, if not exclusively, to exercise these more vigorous powers, for theu- ener- gies afford him the largest complement of purest pleasure. " Trahit sua quemque voluptas,"* each has his ruling passion. But, in the second place, as the exercise of a power is the only means by which it is invigorated, but as, at the 2. Those faculties same time, this exercise, until the development which most need cui- ^^ accomplished, elicits imperfect, and, there- tivation, the least se- x i x i i i i jjyyg jf lore, paintul, or at least less pleasurable, energy, — it follows that those faculties which stand the most in need of cultivation, are precisely those which the least secure it; while, on the contrary, those which are already more fully developed, are precisely those which present the strongest inducements for their still higher in vigo ration. 1 [With the forcKoing theory compare [Bonnet, £ls5at'.4n^yleasanl sensation.' " The following extract from the Philehus^ will, however, show more fully the purport and grounds of liis opinion : " Socrates. I say then, that whenever the har- Quotation from the • ^v, r c • i • i. i ,.^., ^ mony in the irame oi any animal is broken, a Philebus. •' ^ _ •' ' breach is then made in its constitution, and, at the same time, rise is given to pains. '•'• Protarchus. You say what is highly probable. '• Soc. But when the harmony is restored, and the breach is healed, we should say that then pleasure is produced ; if points of so great importance may be despatched at once in so few words. '•'• Prot. In my opinion, O Socrates, you say what is very true; but let us try if we can show these truths in a light still clearer. " Sioc. Are not such things as ordinai-ily happen, and are manifest to us all, the most easy to be understood? " Prot. What things do you mean ? " Soc. Want of food makes a breach in the animal system, and, at the same time, gives the pain of hunger. "■Prot. True. " Soc. And food, in filling u]) the breach again, gives a pleasure. ''Prot. Right. " Soc. Want of drink also, interrupting the circulation of the blood and humors, brings on us corruption together with the pain of thirst ; l>ut the virtue of a liquid in moistening and replenishing the parts dried up, yields a pleasure. In like manner, unnatural suffocating heat, in dissolving the texture of the parts, gives a pain- ful sensation ; but a cooling again, a refreshment agreeable to nature, affects us with a sense of pleasure. " Prot. Most certainly. " Soc. And the concretion of the animal humors through cold, contrary to their nature, occasions pain ; but a return to their prig- tine state of fluidity, and a restoring of the natural circulation, pro- duce pleasure. See, then, whether you think this general account of the matter not amiss, concerning that sort of being which I said was composed of indefinite and definite, — that, when by nature any beings of that sort become animated with soul, their passage into corruption, or a total dissolution, is accompanied with pain; 1 p. 31.— Ed. Lect. XLIII. MKTAi'HYSICS. 583 and their entrance into existence, the assembling of all those par- ticles which compose the nature of such a being, is attended with a sense of ])leasure. '■'■ Prot. I admit your account of tliis whole matter; for, as it apj)ears to mo, it bears on it the stamp of truth." And, in a subsequent ])art of the. dialogue, Socrates is made to approve of the doctrine of the Eleatic School, in regard to the unre- ality of pleasure, as a thing always in generation, that is, always in ])rogress towards existence, but never absolutely existent. " aS'oc. But what think you now of this ? Have we not heard it said concerning pleasure, that it is a thing always in generation, always pi-oduced anew, and which, having no stability of being, <-annot j)roperly be said to be at all? For some ingenious persons there are, who endeavor to show us that such is the nature of j>leas- i;re; and we are much obliged to them for this their account of it."^ Then, after an expository discourse on the Eleatic doctrine, Soc- rates proceeds:- — "Therefore, as I said in the beginning of this iirguraentation, we are much obliged to the persons who have given us this account of pleasure, — that the essence of it consists in bein"- :ihvays generated anew, but that never has it any kind of being. For it is i)laiu that tliese persons would laugh at a man who asserted, that pleasure and good were the same thing. '•'• Prot. Certainly they would. " Soc. And these very persons would undoubtedly laugh at those men, wherever they met with them, who place their chief good and end in a becoming, — an approximation to existence? '•'• Prot. How? what sort of men do you mean? '• Soc. Such as, in freeing themselves from hunger or thirst, or any of the uneasinesses from which they are freed by generation, — by tending towards being, are so highly delighted with the action of removing tliose uneasinesses, as to declare they would not choose to live without suffering thirst and hunger, nor without feeling all those other sensations wiiicli may be said to follow fro?n such kinds of uneasiness." The Bum of Plato's doctrine on this subject is this, — that j)lea8- ure is nothing absolute, nothing positive, but a Sum of iMato's doc- n^^xQ. relation to, a mere negation of, pain. Pain trine of the I'lcasur- . ,. . , - . , j^j^,^ 18 the root, the condition, the antecedent oi jileas- ure, and tlie latter is only a restoration of the feeling •ubject, from a state contrary to nature to a state conforma- ble witli nature. Pleasure is the mere rcplciiisliing of a vacuum, — 1 1'. 53 — Ku 2 r. 54. — Kc. 584 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLUt the mere satisfying of a want. With this principal doctrine, — that pleasure is only the negation of pain, Plato connects sundry collate- ral opinions in conformity to his general system. That pleasure, for example, is not a good, and that it is nothing real or existent, but something only in the progress towards existence, — never beings ever becoming [ael ytyi'dyuevov, Qv^iirore of). Aristotle saw the partiality and imperfection of this theory, and himself proposed another, which should supply The doctrine of Aris- its deficiencies. Ilis Speculations concerning the totie proposed to cor- pleasurable are to be found in his Ethical Trea- reet and i^upplement the riatonic. tises, and, to say nothmg of the two lesser works, the Magna Moralia and the Eudemian Ethics^ you will find the subject fully discussed in the seventh and tenth Books of the Nicomachean Ethics. I shall sav nothinir of Aris- totle's arguments against Eudoxus, as to whether pleasure be the chief good, and against- Plato, as to whether it be a good at all, — these are only ethical questions ; I shall confine my observations to the psychological problem touching the law which governs its manifestation. Aristotle, in the first place, refutes the Platonic theory, that pleasure is only the removal of a Aristotle refutes the pain. " Sincc it is asscrted," he says,- " that pain Platonic doctrine,- j^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^ indigence (tv^ua) contrnrv to na- that pleasure is only ^ \ j the removal of a pain. turc, pleasure Will be a repletion, a filling up {avaTrXrfpwa-L'i) of that want in conformity to na- ture. But want and its repletion are corporeal aflfections. Now if pleasure be the repletion of a want contrary to nature, that which contains the repletion will contain the pleasure, and the faculty of being pleased. But the want and its repletion are in the body ; the body, therefore, will be pleased, — the body will be the subject of this feeling. But the feeling of pleasure is an aflx?ction of the soul. Pleasure, therefore, cannot be merely a repletion. True it is, that pleasure is consequent on the repletion of a want, as pain is conse- quent on the want itself For we are pleased when our wants are satisfied ; pained when this is prevented. " It appears," proceeds the Stagirite, " that this opinion has origi- nated in an exclusive consideration of our bodily pains and pleas- ures, and more especially those relative to food. For Avhen inani- tion has taken place, and we have felt the pains of hunger, we expe- rience pleasure in its repletion. But the same does not hold good 1 The genuineness of these two works is of, the three books which are common to botk questionable. The chapters on pleasure in treatises. — Ed. Eudemian Ethics are identical with those in 2 Eth. Nic. x. 3 — Ed the Vth book of the Nicomachean, being part Lect. xliii. metaphysics. 585 in reference to all our pleasures. For the pleasure we find, for ex ample, in mathematical contemplations, and even in some of the senses, is wholly unaccompanied Avith pain. Thus the gratification we derive from the energies of hearing, smell, and sight, is not con- sequent on any foregone pain, and in them there is, therefore, no repletion of a want. Moreover, hope, and the recollection of past good, are pleasing ; but are the i)leasures from these a repletion ? This cannot be maintained ; for in them there is no want preceding, which could admit of repletion. Hence it is manifest, that pleasure is not the negation of a pain." Having disposed of Plato's theory, Aristotle proposes his own; and his doctrine, in as far as it goes, is altogether llie theory of Aris- r ii*.4.iiTT • ^ xu coniormable to that 1 have given to you, as the one that appears to me the true. Pleasure is maintained by Aristotle to be the concomitant of energy, — of perfect energy, whether of the func- pieasure, according lions' of Sense or Intellect; and .perfect energy to Aristotle, is the con- , / ^ , comitant of the iin- ^^^ describes as that which proceeds from a impeded energy of a powcr in health and vigor, and exercised upon P""*""' an object rehiti\'ely excellent, that is, suited to call forth the power into unimpeded activity. Pleasure, though the result, — the concomitant of perfect action, he distinguishes from the ]»erfect action itself. It is not the action, it is not the perfection, though it be consequent on action, and a necessary efflorescence of its i)erfection. Pleasure is thus defined by Aristotle to be the con- ctnnitant of the unimpeded energy of a natural power, faculty, or acquired habit.' " Thus when a sense, for exam- Aristotle quoted. ... f , 1 1.1 -I •. • , T • 1 pie, IS m periect Jiealth, and it is presented with a suitable object of the most perfect kind, there is elicited the most perfect energy, wliich, at every instant of its continuance, is accom- panied with pleasure. The same holds goleasuie in its pursuit. 1 See above, j> 577 — Ku 74 586 MKTAPII YSICS. Lect. XLIII. '' Every aifferent power has its peculiar pleasure and its peculiar pain ; and each power is as much corrupted by its appropriate pain as it is perfected by its appropriate pleasure. Pleasure is not some- thing that arises, — that comes into existence, part after part; it is, on the contrary, complete at every indivisible instant of its contin- uance. It is not, therefore, as Plato holds, a change, a motion, a generation (yeVeo-ts, kiVt^o-i?), Avhich exists piecemeal as it were, and successively in time, and only complete after a certain term of en- durance ; but on the contrary something instantaneous, and, from moment to moment, perfect."^ Such were the two theories touching the law of ])]easure and pain, propounded by the two principal thinkers Nothing added in of antiquity. To their doctrines on this point anti.iu.ty to the two ^^ gj^^| nothing added, worthv of commemora- theories of Plato and . . . ' Aristotle. tion, by the succeeding philoso]ihers of Greece and Rome ; nay, we do not find that in antiquity these doctrines received any farther development or confirmation. Among the ancients, however, the Aristotelic theory seems to have soon superseded the Platonic ; for, even among the lower Platonists themselves, there is no attempt to vindicate the doctrine of their master, in so far as to assert that all pleasure is only a relief from pain. Their sole endeavor is to reconcile Plato's opinion with that of Aristotle, by showing that the former did not mean to extend the principle in question to pleasure in general, but applied it only to the pleasures of certain of the senses. And, in truth, various passa- ges in the Philebus and in the ninth book of the Hejniblic^ afford countenance to this interpretation.^ Be this, however, as it may, it was only in more recent times that the Platonic doctrine, in all its exclusive rigor, was again revived ; and that too by philosophers who seem not to have been aware of the venerable authority in favor of the pai-adox which they proposed as new. I may add that the philosophers, who in modern times have speculated upon the conditions of the pleasurable, seem, in general, unaware of what had been attempted on this problem by the ancients ; and it is indeed this circumstance alone that enables us to explain, why the modern theories on this subject, in principle the same with that of Aristotle, have remained so inferior to his in the great virtues of a theory, — comprehension and simplicity. 1 See Eth. Nit. x 4. 5. — Ed. [On Aristotle's both of Sense and Intellect, is, according to doctrine ol tlie I'leasurable; see Teunemaiin, Plato, accompanied with a sensation of Gtsh. der Fhiloaofhie, iii. 200] plAsure and pain. Rer'ublic, ix. 557. Phile- 2 [Plato, a.s well as Aristotle, seems to have bus, p. 211, edit. Bip. See Tennemann, (?«• made pleasure consist in a harmonious, pain schkhtt der Philosophie, ii. p. 290.] in a disharmonious, energy. Every energy, Lect. XLm. METAPHYSICS. 587 Before, however, proceeding to the consideration of subsequent opinions, it may be proper to observe that the The tiKories of Plato theories of PUito and Aristotle, however oppo- and Aristotle reduced . . ^^ ^ t i ^jjj^ Site in appearance, may easily be reduced to unity, and the theory of which I liave given you the general expression, will be found to be the consummated com- plement of both. The two doctrines differ only essentially in this : — that the one makes a previous pain the universal condition of pleasure ; while the other denies this condition as a general law, and holds that pleasure is a positive reality, and more than the mere nlternative of pain. Now, in regard to this difference, it must be admitted, on the one liand, that in so far as the instances are con- cerned, on which Plato attempts to establish his princiiWe, Aristotle is successful in showing, that these are only special cases, and do not warrant the unlimited conclusion in support of which they are adduced. But, on the other hand, it must be confessed that Aristotle ha« not shown the principle to be false, — that all pleasure is an escape from ])ain. lie shows, indeed, that the analogy of hunger, thirst, and other bodily affections, cannot be extended In what sense the ^^y ^\^Q gratification we experience from the ener- Platonic dogma is . f • , ^^ j. ^ i * i i gCies oi intellect, — cannot be extended even to true. ... that which we experience in the exercise of the higher senses. It is true, that the pleasure I experience in this par- ticular act of vision, cannot be explained from the j»ain I had felt in another particular act of vision, immediately preceding; and if this example were enough, it would certaiidy be made out that pleasure is not merely the negation of a foregoing pain. But let us ascend a step higher and iiKjuire, — would it not be painful if the faculty of vision (to take the same example) Avere wholly restrained from operation '? Now it will not be denied, that the repression of any power ill its natural tiisus, — conatus, to action, is j)Ositively painful ; and, tlierefore, that the exertion of a i)Ower, if it aflbrded only a negation of that positive pain, and were, in its own nature, abso- lutely indifferent, would, by relation to the pain from which it yields us a relief^ appear to us a real pleasure. We may, therefore, I think, maintain, with perfect truth, that as the holding back of any power from exercise is jiositivily j)ainful, so its passing into energy is, were it only the removal of tliat painful repression, negatively pleasurable; on this ground, conseiiuently, :nnl to this extent, we may rightly hold with Plato. — that every state of pleasure and free energy is, in fact, the t-seape from an alternative state of pain anil comjmlsory inaction. 588 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XLIil. So far we are warranted in going. But we should be wrong were we to constitute this partial truth into an unlimited, — an exclusive principle ; that is, were we to maintain that the whole pleasure we derive from the exercise of our powers, is noth- The doctrine that j^ ^^^.^ ^^^^^ ^ negation of the pain we expe- the whole pleasure of . '^ .1 • /^ 1 • ^- rp, • t actirity arises from "ence from their forced inertion. llus I say the negation of the would be an erroneous, because an absolute, con- pain of forced iner- clusion. For the pleasure we find in the free tion, — erroneous. , j-. r i.- • i. x- 11 play 01 our faculties is, as we are most lully con- scious, far more than simply a superseding of pain. That j)liiloso- phy, indeed, would only ])rovoke a smile which would maintain, that, all pleasure is in itself only a zero, — a notliing, which becomes a something only by relation to the reality of pain which it annuls. It is true, indeed, that after a compulsory iner- Afier compulsory in- ^. ^^^^ pleasure, iu the first exertion of our ertion, pleasure high- . ^ n ^ • i i-i. er than in ordinary faculties, IS frequently lar higher than that which circumstances, — ex- we experience in their ordinary exercise, when P^"'"^'!- left at libertv. But this does not, at least does not exclusively, arise from the contrast of the previous and subse- quent states of pain and pleasure, but principally because the powers are in excessive vigor, — at least in excessive erethism or excitation, and have thus a greater complement of intenser energy suddenly to expend. On the principle, therefore, that the degree of pleasure is always in the ratio of the degree of spontaneous activity, the pleas- ure immediately consequent on the emancipation of a power from thraldom, would, if the power remain uninjured by the constraint,, be naturally greater, because the energy would in that case be, for a season, more intense. At the same time, the state of pleasure would in this case appear to be higher tli.-m what it absolutely is ; because it would be set oft" by proximate contrast with a previous state of pain. Thus it is that a basin of water of ordinary blood heat, ap- pears hot, if we plunge in it a hand which had previously been (lip])ed in snow; and cold, if we immerse in it another which had previously been placed in water of a still higher temperature. But it is unfair to apply this magnifying effect of contrast to the one relative and not to the other; and any argument Unfair to apply the ^^^..^^^^^ ^^.^^^ -^ against the positive reality of magnifying effect ol ,.""11 -,• i contrast to disprove J'leasure, applies equally to disprovc the positivc the positive reality of reality of pain. The true doctrine I hold to be pleasure more than of j^j^jg . — ^-j^j^^ p^j^j ^^^^j pleasure are, as I havc ^'"" said, each to be considered both as Absolute and as Relative ; — absolute, that is, each is something real, and would exist were the other taken out of being ; relative, that is, each is felt. i Lkct. XLIII. metaphysics. 589 as greater or less by immediate contrast to the other. I may illus- trate this by the analogy of a scale. Let the Pleasure and pain state of indifference, — that is, the negation of both Absolute and i i • t i i , -, Keiative. "^^"^ V^^^ ^"*^ pleasure, be marked as zero, let the degrees of pain be denoted by a descending series of numbers below zero, and the degrees of pleasure by an ascending series of numbers above zero. Now, suppose the degree of pain we feel from a certain state of hunger, to be six below zero ; in this case our feeling, in the act of eating, will not merely rise to zero, that is, to the mere negation of pain, as the Platonic theory holds, but to sorrje degree of positive pleasure, say six. And here I may observe, that, were the insufficiency of the Platonic theory (shown by nothing else, this would be done by the absurd conse- quences it implies, in relation to the function of nutrition alone; for if its principles be true, then would our gratification from the appease- ment of hunger, be equally great by one kind of viand as by another. Thus, then, the counter theories of Plato and Aristotle are, as I have said, right in what they afiirm, wrong in The counter tiieorios what they deny; each contains the truth, but «f Plato and Aristotle ^^^ ^,^^ ^.,^^j^ ^^.^^^^ 3 sui.plving, therefore, tiK- partial expressions . . ... ot the true. ^^ Cither that in which it was defective, we reduce their apparent discord to real harmony, and show that they are severally the partial expressions of a theory which comprehends and consummates them both. But to proceed in our historical survey. Passing over a host of commentators in the Lower Empire, and during the middle ages, who were content to Historical notices of . .^^ ^|,^ doctrincs of AHstotlc and Plato; in tin- theories of the . ir. ••ii-i t Pleasurable, resumed. ^nodem timcs, the first original pliiloso])her I am aware of, who seems to have turned his atten- tion upon the j)hainomena of jiain and pleasure, is the celebrated Cardan ; and the result of his observation was a Cardan, - held a theo,.y identical with Plato's, though of Plato's theory identical with 1 • i i 11 j.|jjjjjig speculation he does not seem to have been aware. In the sixth chapfer of his very curious autobiography, J)e \'ita Propria lAher^ he tells us, that it was his wont to anticii)ate the causes of disease, because lie was of opinion that pleasure consisted in the appeasement of a preiixistent pain, (quod arbitrarer, voluptatem consistere in dolore jira'cedenti, sed:.- to). ])Ut in the thirteenth book of his great work, De Suht'ditate^ this theory is formally j)ro])ouiid('d. This, however, was not done in the earlier editions of the work; and, the theory was, therefore, not canvassed by the ingenuity of his critic, the elder Scaliger, 500 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLIIl whose Exercitationes contra Cardanum ai'e totally silent on the gubject. It is only in the editions of the De Subtilitate of Cardan, subsequent to the yeai- 1560, that a statement of the theory in ques- tion is to be found. The following is a summary of his reasoning: — "All pleasure has its root in a preceding 2:>ain. ummaryo is oc- Thus it is tliat we find pleasure in rest after trme. . ^ hard labor ; in meat and drink after hunger and thirst ; in the sweet after the bitter ; in light after darkness ; in har- mony after discord. Such are the facts in confirmation of this doc- trine, which simple experience affords. But philosophy supplies, likewise, a reason from the nature of things themselves. Pleasure and pain exist only as they are states of feeling ; but feeling is a change, and change always proceeds from one contrary to another; consequently, either from the good to the bad, or from the bad to the good. The former of these alternatives is painful, and, there- fore, the other, when it takes its place, is pleasing ; a state of pain must thus always precede a state of pleasure." Such are the grounds on which Cardan tlrinks himself entitled to reject the Aristotelic theory of pleasure, and to substitute in its place the Platonic. It does not, however, appear from anything he says, that he was aware of the relative speculations of these two philosophers. But the reasoning of Cardan is incompetent : for if it proves any- thing, it proves too much, seeing that it would • His theory criticized. n ^^ n • follow from his premises, that a pleasurable feel- ing cannot gradually, continually, uninterruptedly, rise in intensity; for i;t behooves that every new degree of pleasure should be sepa- rated from the preceding by an intermediate state of higher pain; a conclusion which is contradicted by the most ordinary and mani- fest experience. This theory remained, therefore, in Cardan's as in Plato's hands, destitute of the necessary proof The same doctrine — that pleasure is only the alternation and consequent of pain — was adopted, likewise, by . ontaigne,- le a Montaii^ne. In the famous twelfth chapter of ■iimilar doctrine. ^ _ * the second book of his Essays^ he says : — "Our states of pleasure are only the privation of our states of pain;" but this universal inference he, like his jiredecessors, deduces only from the special phasnomena given in certain of the senses. The philosopher next in order is Descartes;^ and his opinion is 1 Before Descartes, Vives held a positive tionis ratione aliqua inter facultatem et ob- theory of the i)Ieasurable His definition of jectum, ut qusedam sit quasi similitude inter pleasure and it;* illustration, are worthy of a ilia: turn ne notabiliter sit majus, quod adfert passing notice:'- Delectatio sita est in congru- delectationem ; nee notabiliter minus, quam eotia, quam iuvenire non est sine propor- ea vis quae recipit voluptatem, ea utique part« Lect. XLIII. METAPHYSICS. 591 deserving of attention, not so much from its intrinsic value, as Descartes ^"^^'^ ^^® influence it has exerted ujion those who have subsequently speculated upon tlie causes of pleasure. These philosophers seem to have been totally ignorant of the far profounder theories of the ancients; and while the regular discussions of the subject by Aristotle and Plato were, for our modern psychologists, as if they had never been, the inci- dental allusion to the matter by Descartes, originated a series of speculations which is still in progress. Descartes' philosophy of the pleasurable is promulgated in one short sentence of the sixth letter of the First pleasurable Part of his EplstUs, which is addressed to the Princess Elizabeth. It is as follows : — ** All our pleasure is nothing more than the consciousness of some one or other of our perfections." — ("Tota nostra voluptas posita est tan- tum in perfectionis alicujus nostra conscientia.") It is curious to hear the praises that have been lavished upon this definition of the pleasurable. It has been lauded for its novelty ; roun essy au e j^ j^^^ been lauded for its importance. "Des- for its novelty and im- _ '_ portance. cartes," says Mendelssohn in liis J^etters on the Setisations {Jiriefe iiber die Empfindungeii)y " was the first who made the attempt to give a real erpJanation of the pleasurable." ' The celebrated Kaestner thus opens his Reflex- ions sur VOrigine du Plaisir.- — "I shall not pretend decidedly to assert that no one before Descartes has said, that pleasure consisted in the feeling of some one of our perfections. I confess, however, that I have not found this definition in any of the dissertations, some- times tiresome, and frequently uninstructive, of the ancient philoso- phers on the nature and effects of pleasure. I am, therefore, disposed to attribute a discovery which has occasioned so many controversies, to that felicitous genius, which has disencumbered mctajdiysics of the confused chaos of disjjutes, as unintelligible as vain, in order to render it the solid and instructive science of God and of the human soul." And JNI. Beitrand, another very intelligent i)hilosopher, in his Essai sur le J^laisir^ says, "Descartes is })robably the first who has enounced, that all pleasure consists hi the inward feeliug ww quarecipitur. Ideo inedlocrisi Inx pratior est appended to flie NouvtUe Thcorie drs PInisirs, oculis, <|uan> iiigcns: ct (iubob.-cura pratiora par M .S'H/crr (1707) Tliu .Xoiinllr Tiironr in m sunt hebefj visui; euiulem in modum de French version of Siiber's tronti.-c. Vnttrsu- «oni8." De Anima, 1. iii p. 202, edit 1556. — ckung ttfcfr dm Vrsjming drr angrnrhmm und Ed. unangfnehmen Entft/mdungen. See above, p. 1 Anmerkung, 6. — Ed. 410 —Ed. • The Rfflexions sur I Origint du Plaisxr, is 3 Sect. i. cb i. p. 3. Neuchatel. 17T7 — Ki>. V 592 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. XLIII. liave of some of our perfections, ami, in these few words, he has unfolded a series of great truths." Now what is the originality, what is the importance, of this cele- brated definition? This is easily answered, — The ckjcfrinr of Des- j^^ g^ f^^ ^^ -^ j^gg ^ny meaning, it is only a state- cartes, a vague vewion . T , , £• 4.-U^ +^., + 1, , .. ' „ " . ., ment, in vague and general terms, ot the truth of that of Aristotle i o o which Aristotle had promulgated, in precise and proximate expressions. Descartes says, that pleasure is the con- sciousness of one or other of our perfections. This is not false; but it is not instructive. We are not conscious of any perfection of our nature, except in so far as this is the perfection of one or other of our powers ; and we are not conscious of a power at all, far less of its perfection, except in so far as we are conscious of its •oi)cration. It, therefore, behooved Descartes to have brought down his definition of jileasure from the vague generality of a conscious- ness of perfection, to the precise and proximate declaration, that pleasure is a consciousness of the perfect energy of a power. But this improvement of his definition would have stripped it of all nov- elty. It would then have appeared to be, what it truly is, only a version, and an inadequate version, of Aristotle's. These are not the only objections that could be taken to the Cartesian definition ; but for our present purpose it would be idle to advance them. Leibnitz is the next philosopher to whose opinion I shall refer; and this you will find stated in his JVouveaux Leibnitz, -adopted -Essais,^ and Other works latterly published. both the counter theo- ^ •, -r^ i i r- i ^i ^ v Like Descartes, he defines pleasure the feeling ries. of a perfection, pain the feeling of an imperfec- tion ; and, in another part of the work,- he adopts the Platonic the- ory, that all pleasure is grounded in pain, Avhich he ingeniously con- nects with his own doctrine of latent modifications, or, as he calls them, obscure perceptions. As this work, however, was not pub- lished till long after not only his own death, but that of his great disciple Wolf, the indication (for it is nothing more) of his opinion on this point had little influence on subsequent speculations ; indeed I do not remember to have seen the doctrine of Leibnitz upon pleasure ever alluded to by any of his countrymen. Wolf, with whose doctrine that of Baumgarten'' nearly coincides, defines pleasure, the intuitive cognition (that is. Wolf .... in our language, the perception or imagination) of any perfection whatever, either true or apparent. — "Voluptas 1 Lib. ii. ch. xxi. i 41. Opera, ed. Erdmann, 3 See his Metaphysik, J 482 et seq , p. 233, edit- p. 261. — Ed. 1V83. Cf Platner, Phil. Aphorismen, ii. } 365, 2 Lib. ii. ch. xx § 6. Opera, ed. Erdmann, p 218. —Ed. p. 248- -Ed Lfxt. xliii. metaphysics. 593 est intuitu^, sen cognitio intuitiva, jiei-fectionis cujuscunque, sive verse sive apparentis." ' His doctrine you will find detailed in his Psychologia J£rnpirica^ and in liis Ilorm Suhse- His doctrine criti- . x^ -x* xi . ^i. is? • i ^ ^l . , civce. It was manitestly the onspnnij, but the degenerate offspring, of the doctrine of Descar- tes, which, as we have seen, was itself only a corruption of that of Aristotle. Descartes riglitly considered pleasure as a quality of the subject, in defining it a consciousness of some perfection in ourselves. Wolf, on the contrary, wrongly considers pleas- 1. Wrongly considers m-g more as an attribute of the object, in defin- pleasure as an attri- ... •^- j} c ^- i ^ ^ ^ ^. ins it a coOTition of any perfection whatever. butc of the object. => ~ _ "^ '■ Now in their definitions of pleasure, as Descar- tes was inferior to Aristotle, so Wolf falls far below Descartes, and in the same quality, — in want of precision and proximity. Pleasure is a feeling, and a feeling is a merely subjective state, that is, a state which has no reference to anything beyond itself, — which exists only as we are conscious of its existence. Now, then, the perfection or imperfection of an object, considered in itself, and as out of relation to our subjective states, is thought — is judged, but is not felt ; and this judgment is not pleasure or ))ain, but appro- bation or disapprobation, that is, an act of the cognitive faculties, but not an affection of the capacities of feeling. In this ])oint of view, therefore,' the definition of pleasure, as the cognition of any sort of perfection, is eiToneous. It may, indeed, be true that the perfection of an object can determine the cognitive faculty to a ])er- fect energy; and the concomitant of this perfect energy will be a feeling of pleasure. But, in this case, the objective perfection, as cognized, is not itself the pleasure ; but the ])leasure is the feeling which we have of the perfection, that is, of the state of vigorous and unimpeded energy of the cognitive faculty, as exercised on that perfection. Wolf ought, therefore, to have limited his definition, like Descartes, to the consciousness of subjective pei-fection ; as Descartes should have explicated his consciousness of subjective perfection into the consciousness of full, spontaneous and unim- peded activity. But there is another defect in the WoHian definition: — it limits the pleasures from the cognition of perfection to the Intuitive T^icul- ties, that is, to Sense and Imagination, denying it to the Under- standing, — the faculty of relations, — Thought Proper. This part of his theory was, accordingly, assailed by Moses Mendelssohn, — one of the best writers and most ingenious jdiilosophers of tlie last I Pstjchologia Empinca, ^ 511, where he expressly refers to Descartes a« the author ot the detiDition. — Ed. 75 594 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLIII. century, — who, in other respects, however, remained faithful to the objective point of view, from whence Wolf 2. Limits pleasure to ^^^ contemplated the phaenomenon of i)leasure. the coguition of per- '■ '■ fection by the intui- This was done in his Mriefe iiber die Emp- tive Faculties. Jtucluugen^ 1755.^ A reaction was, however, This part of Wolf's inevitable ; and other German philosophers doctrine assailed by ^^^.^ ^^^^^ found who returned to the subjec- Mendelssohn. . . tive point of view from which Woli, Joaumgar- ten, and Mendelssohn had departed. But before passing to these, it would be improper to overlook the doctrine of two French philosophers, who had Du Bos and Pouiiiy, already explained pleasure in its subjective as- - considered pleasure ^^ ^^^ ^,j^^ prepared the Way for the pro- in its subjective as- ■% . ^ , ^ , founder theories oi the German speculators, — 1 mean Du Bos and Pouilly. As their doctrines nearly coincide, I shall consider them as one. The former treats of this subject in his Reflexions Critiques sur la Peiiiture^ etc.; the latter in his Theorie des Sentimens Agreables.^ The following are the principal momenta of their inquiries : " 1. Considering pleasure only in relation to the subject, the ques- tion they propose to answer is. What takes place eorysae . ^^ ^^^^ state which wc Call pleasurable? " 2. The gratification of a want causes pleasure. If the want be natural, the result is a natural pleasure, and an unnatural pleasure if the want be unnatural. "3. The fundamental want — the want to which all others may be reduced — is the occuj)atio.! of the mind. All that we know of the mind is that it is a thinking, a knowing power. We desire ob- jects only for the sake of intellectual occupation. " The activity of mind is either occupied or occupies itself. The-, matters which afford the objects of our faculties of knowledge are either sensible impressions, which are delivered over to the under- standing — this is the case in perception of sense ; or this matter 1 See Aumerkung, 6; and Reinhold, iJber die cipe, first appeared in 1746. This work, along hiskerigen Be^ifff vom Vcrgnitsfn, § 2. Ver- with two relative treatises, was republished mischte Schri/ten i. p 281 et seq. — Ed. in 1774, under the title of Principes de la Littrr- i See torn. p. i. §^ 1,2. First published in ature. All these authors consider pleasure, 1719, Paris. — Eu. more or less, from the subjective point of 3 See ohaps. i iii. iv. v. First published in view, and are, in principle, Aristotelic For 1743 To these should be added the valuable a collection of treatises, in whole and part, treatise of the Pere Andre, — the Essai sur le on pleasure in its psychological and moral JSfau, which was first published in 1741. There aspects, .^^ee Le Temple du Bonhevr ou Recueil is also, previously to Sulzer, another French dts i-lus Excellens Traitcs sur le Bonheur; in 4 xsthetical writer of merit, — Batteux, whose vote. New edition, 1770. — Ed. treatise, Les Beaux Arts reduxis a un meme Prin- Lect. XLIII. METAPHYSICS. 595 is furnished by the cognitive faculty itself — as is the case in think- ing. "5. If this activity meets with impediments in its prosecution, — be this in the functions eitlier of thouglit or sense, — there re- sults a feeling of I'estraiut ; and this of two kinds, positive and neg- ative. " 6. When the activity, Avhether in perception or thinking, is pre- vented from being brouglit to its conclusion, there emerges the feel- ing of straining, — of effort, — the feeling of positive limitation of our powers. This is painful. "7. If the mind be occupied less than usual in all its functions, there arises a feeling of unsatisfied want ; this constitutes that state of negative restraint, — the state of ennui, of tedium. This is jjainlul. " 8. The stronger and at the same time the easier the activity of mind in any of its functions, the more agreeable.'" This theory is evidently only that of Aristotle ; to whom, how- ever, the French philosophers make no allusion. "What they call occupation or exercise, he calls energy. The former expressions are, perhaps, preferable on this account, that they apply equally well to the mental processes, whether active or passive, whereas the terms energy, act, activity, operation, etc., only proi)erly denote these pro- cesses as they are considered in the former character. Subsequently to the French philosophers, and as a reaction against the partial views of the school of Wolf, there Sulzer, — Ins theory appeared the theory of Sulzer, the Academifian a reaction against the r> t> i- i i • i /• i ,.,,,,-, 01 Ijerhn, — a theory which was nrst ])roniul- views of Wolf. ' '' I gated in his K)i(piiry into the Origin of our Agreeable and Disagreeahle Feelings,^ in 1752. This is one of the ablest discussions upon the question, and though partial, like the others, it concurs in establisliing the truth of that doctrine of which Aristotle has left, in a short comj)ass, the most complete and satisfac- tory exposition. The following are the leading principles of Sulzer's theory : "1. We must penetrate to the essence of the soul, if we would discover the })rimary source of pleasure. "2. The essence of the soul consists in its natural activity, and this activity again consists in the production of ideas." [By that he means the faculty in general of Cognition or Thought. I may 1 Abridged from Reiuhold, Uber die hish- lishod in the Memoirs of flie Uoval Academy trigtn B'gritre vom Vergmlgen, I) 1. Verm, of Berlin for the years 1751, 175'i. Sec Verm. Schrijt p 275 —Kd. Phil. Sckrijien, vol. i p i , 1773. See abort, 2 Vntersuehung xiher ilfn Ur.tprung der angeneh. p. 660. — Ku. fruit und unan^cnefiiiien Empjindun^en. V\x\>- 590 METAPHYSICS. Lkct. Xhllt here observe, by the way, that ho adopts the opinion that the flieulty of thouglit or cognition is the one funda- eorysae . mental power of mind; and in this he coincides with Wolf, whose theory of pleasure, however, he rejects.] "3. In this essential tendency to activity are grounded all our pleasurable and painful feelings. " 4. If this natural activity of the soul, or this ceaseless tendency to think, encounters an impediment, i)ain is the result; whereas if it be excited to a lively activity, the result is pleasure. " 5. There are two conditions which regulate the degree of capac- ity and incapacity in the soul for ])leasurable and painful feelings, the habitude of reflection, and the natural vivacity of thought ; and both together constitute the perfect activity of mind. " 6. Pleasurable feelings, consequently, can only be excited by objects which at once comprise a variety of constituent qualities or characters, and in which these characters are so connected that the mind recognizes in them materials for its essential activity. An object which presents to the mental activity no exercise, remains altogether indifferent. " 7. No object which moves the mind in a pleasurable or in a pain- ful manner is simple ;^ it is necessarily composite or multiplex. The difference between agreeable and disagreeable objects can only lie in the connection of the parts of this multiplicity. Is there order in this connection, the object is agreeable ; is there disorder, it is painful. "8. Beauty is the manifold, the various, recalled to unity. The mere multitude of parts does not constitute an object beautiful ; for there is required that an object should have at once such multiplic- ity and connection as to form a whole. " 9. This is the case in intellectual beauty ; that is, in the beauty of those objects which the understanding contemplates in distinct notions. The beauty of geometrical theorems, of algebraic formulae, of scientific principles, of comprehensive systems, consists, no less than the beauty of objects of Imagination and Sense, in the unity of the manifold, and rises in proportion to the quantity of the multi- plicity and the unity. "10. All these objects present a multitude of constituent charac- ters, — of elementary ideas, at once ; and these are so connected, so hound together by a principle of unity, that the mind is, in conse- quence thereof, enabled to unfold and then to bring back the differ- ent parts to a common centre, that is, reduce them to unity, — to totality, — to system. 1 [But see Tiedemann's Psyckologie, p. 152.] Lect. XLllI. METAPHYSICS. 597 "11. From this it is evident, that the Beautiful only causes j)leas- ure through the principle of activity. Unity, multiplicity, corre- spondence of parts, render an object agreeable to us, only inasmuch as they stand in a favorable relation to the active power cf the mind. " 12. The relation in which beauty stands to the mind is thus nec- essary, and, consequently, immutable. A single condition is alone required in order that what is in itself beautiful should operate on us ; it is necessary that we should know it ; and to know, it is nec- essary that, to a certain extent, we be conversant with the kind to which it belongs; for otherwise we should not be competent to appi-ehend the beauty of an object. (!) " 13. A difference of taste is found only among the ignorant or the half-learned; and taste is a necessary consequence of knowl- edge."' I shall not jjursue this theory to the explanation it attempts of the pleasures of the Senses and of the Moral Powers, in which it is far less successful than in those of the Intellect. This was to be expected in consequence of the o!ie-sided view Sulzer had taken of the mental pha^nomena, in assuming the Cognitive Faculty as the elementary ])ower out of which the Feelings and Conations are evolved.^ The theory of Sulzer is manifestly only a one-sided moditieation of the Aristotelic; but it does not appear that The theory of sui/er ^^^ ^^..^^ himself aware how completelv he had criticized. . . • • /^' been anticipated by the Stajrinte. " On the con- trary, he once and again denominates his explanation of the pleasur- able a discovery. This can, however, hardly oe allowed him, even were the Aristotelic theory out of the question ; for it required no mighty ingenuity for a ])hiloso])her who was well accpiainted with the works of his immediate predecessors, in France and Germany, by whom ])leasure had been explained as the vigorous and easy exercise of the faculties, — as the feeling of perfection in ourselves, and as the ap|)rehensiou of perfection in other things, that is, tlieir unity in variety: — I say, after these opinions of his precursors, it required no such uncommon effort of invention to hit upon the thought, — that j)leasure is determined when the variety in the object calls forth the activity of the subject, and when this activity is rendered easy by the unity in which tlie variety is contained. His explanation is more explicit, but, except a diange of expression, 1 See Keinhold [ f/Vr r/if bi.thfrig:en Bfgriffe 2 For Suljfr's doctrines on the^e points ««• vom Vergnilgen, ^ 3. Vtrm. Schrift. p. 296 «« Keinhold, mj »tjv>/»-, p. 3t)l cJ «?. — tl>. iitq. — Ed. 598 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLIII. it is not easy to see what Sulzer added to Du Bos and Pouilly, to say nothing of Wolf and Mendelssohn." " The theory of Sulzei- is snmmed nj) in tlie following resnlt : — Every variety of pleasure may, subjectively con- . ummary o e e- gi^ered, be carried into the prompt and vigorous activity of the cognitive faculty ; and, objec- tively considered, be explained as the product of objects which, in consequence of their variety in unity, intensely occupy the mind without fatiguing it. The peculiar merit of the theory of Sulzer, in contrast to those of his immediate predecessors, is that it combines both the subjective and ob- jective points of view. In tiiis respect, it is favorably contrasted with the opinion of Wolf and Mendelssohn. But it takes a one- sided view of the character of the subject. In Its defect. the first place, the essence of the mind in gen- eral, and the essence of the cognitive faculty in particular, does not consist of activity exclusively, but of activity and receptivity in cor- relation. But receptivity is a passive power, not an active, and thus the theory in its fundamental position is only half true. This one- sided view by Sulzer, in Avhich regard is had to the active or intel- lectual element of our constitution to the exclusion of the passive or sensual, is precisely the ojiposite to that other, and equally one-sided, view which was taken by Helvetius ^ and the modern Ej)icureans and Materialists ; but their theory of the pleasurable may be passed over as altogether without philosophical importance. In the second place, it is erroneous to assert that pleasure is nothing else than the consciousness of the unimpeded activity of mind. The activity of mind is manifested principally in thinking, whereas the state of pleasure consists wholly of a consciousness of feeling. In the enjoy- ment of pleasure we do not think, but feel ; and in an intenser enjoyment there is almost a suspension of thought." - It is not necessary to say much of the speculations upon pleasure subsequent to Sulzer, and prior to Kant. In Genovesi aud Verii J^.j]^^,^ J flj^j ^1,.^^. ^^^^ plulosophcrs of the last adopted the Platonic ' , , -i . -, ^ -r»i • • • ^^g^j.. century had adopted the Flatonic opmion, — of pleasure being always an escape from pain, — Genovesi and Verri; the former in a chapter of his 3fetaphysics,'^ the latter in a chapter of his Dissertation on the Nature of Pleas- ure and Pain} This opinion, however, reacquires importance from 1 De r Esprit, disc. i. ch. i. Cf. De I'Homme, < Discorso siiir Indole del Piacere, e del Dolore, •ect. ii ch. x. — Ed. §§ iii. iv. Opfre Filoxofidir, i j). 20 et seg., edit. 2 See Reinhold, as above, pp. 308, 315, 317. 1784. This treati,se is translated into German — Ed. by Meiners, — Gedanken Vtber die NaXur de* * Cap. vi. t. ii. p. 213, edit. 1753. — Ed. VergnH^ens. Leipsic, 1777. — Ed. I Lect. XLIIl. METAPHYSICS. 599 having been adopted from Verri by the philosopher of Konisberg. In his Manual of Anthropology^ Kant bricHv Kant adontefl the , n , , i • i • i • • ' _, . ... and generally States his doctrine on this iioint: Platouic theory. . . but in the notes which have been recently printed of his Lectures on this subject, we have a more detailed view of the character and grounds of his opinion. The Kantian 4octrine is as follows : " Pleasure is the feeling of the furtherance [JBeforderimg), pain of the hindrance of life. Under ])leasur6 is not His doctrine stated. , l ^ i ^i r t c ^^ c r • to be understood the feeling of lite ; for in pain we feel life no less than in pleasure, nay, even perhaps more strongly. In a state of pain, life appears long, in a state of j)leasure, it seems brief; it is only, therefore, the feeling of promotion, — the further- ance, of life, which constitutes ])leasure. On the other hand, it is not the mere hindrance of life which constitutes pain ; the hin- drance must not only exist, it must be felt to exist." (Before pro- ceeding further, I may observe, that these definitions of pleasure and ])aiii are virtually identical Avith those of Aristotle, only far less clear and explicit.) But to proceed: "If jileasure be a feeling of the promotion of life, this presup))oses a hindrance of life; for there can be no promotion, if there be no foregoing hindrance to overcome. Since, therefore, the hindrance of life is pain, pleasure must presuppose pain "If we intend our vital powers above their ordinary degree, in order to go out of the state of inditlerence or ecpiality, we induce an opj)osite state ; and when we intend the vital powers above the suitable degree we occnsion a liindrance, a pain. The vital force has a degree along with which a state exists, which is one neither of pleasure nor of pain, but of content, of comfort {dan WoJtlhe- finden). When this state is reduced to a lower )>itch by any hin- drance, then, a promotion, a furtherance of life is useful in order to overcome this impediment. Pleasure is thus always a consequent of pain. Wlu'n we cast our eyes on the progress of tiling;?, we dis- cover in ourselves a ceaseless tendency to escape from our jiresent state. To this we are compelle i -r i ■• and I'ainfui feeling. ^^ disposed freely to exert. In other words, we feel positive pleasure, in proportion as our pow- ers are exercised, but not over-exercised ; we feel positive pain, in proportion as they are compelled either not to operate, or to oper- ate too much. All j^leasure, thus, arises from the free play of our faculties and capacities ; all pain from their compulsory repression or compulsory activity. The doctrine meets with .no contradiction from the facts of actual life ; for the contradictions which, at first sight. Apparent contradic- these sccm to offer, prove, when examined, to be tious of the doctrint- , n ,. rrii -j. • i >. i -i i . real connrmations. Ihus it might be thought, prove real con firm a- , _ •- o ' tio„g, that the aversion from exercise, — the love of Thedcice/arniente. idleness, — in a word, the dolce far nieitte, — is a proof that tlie inactivity, rather than the exer- tion, of our powers, is the condition of our pleasurable feelings. This objection, from a natural proneness to inertion in man, is superficial; and the very examples on "which it proceeds, refute it, nnd, in refuting it, concur in establishing our theory of pleasure and pain. Now, is the far niente, — is that doing This is not the nega- nothing, ill which SO many find so sincere a tion of activity, but ^-i- .l* • ^•,. j.' r ^- -^ ijratihcation, in reanty a negation oi activitv, the opposite. ° _ ' _ "^ ... * and not in truth itself an activity intense and vaiied ? To do nothing in this sense, is simply to do nothing irk- some, — nothing difficult, — nothing fatiguing, — csjtecially tt» do n<> outward work. But is the mind internally, the while, unoccu]>ied and inert? This, on the contrary, may be vividly alive, — may ]»c intently engaged in the spont.aneous play of imagination ; and so far, therefore, in this case, from pleasure l)eing the concomitant of inactivity, the activity is, on the contrary, at once vigorous and unimpeded; and such, a<-cordingly, as, on our theory, would be accompanied ]>y a lii^li degree of ))leasure. Knnui — what. tt i ^\ • i • i ^ n t .1 • - Ennui i> tlie state in which we find notliing on All occupation either 1 • 1 . • i ^ • • wlucli to exercise our powers ; out ennui is a phiv or labor. ' stall' of ]i,rui. We must recollect, tliat all energy, all occupation, is either play or lal)or. In the former, tlie energy aj>- 604 METAPHYSICS Lect. XLIV. pears as free or spontaneous ; in the latter, as either compulsoi-ily put forth, or its exertion so impeded by difficulties, that it is only con- tinued by a forced and painful effort, in order to accomplish certain ulterior ends. Under certain circumstances, indeed, play may become a labor, and labor may become a play, A play is, in fact, a labor, until we liave acquired the dexterity requisite to allow the faculties exerted to operate with ease ; and, on the other hand, a labor is said to become a play, when a person has by nature, or has acquired by custom, such a facility in the relative operations, as to energize at once vigoroiisly and freely. In jioint of fact, as man by his nature is determined to pursue happiness (happiness is only another name for a complement of pleasures), he is determined to that spontaneous activity of his faculties, in which pleasure consists. The love of action is, indeed, signalized, as a The love of action fact iu human nature, by all who have made signalized as a fact in ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^-^^ ^^ observation, though feW of tiuman nature by all , . . observers. them have been able to explain its true ration- SamueiJohn.sou. ^^^- " The necessity of action," says Samuel Johnson,^ "is not only demonstrable from the fabric of the body, but evident from observation of the univejsal practice of mankind, Avho, for the preservation of health" (he should have said for pleasure), " in those whose rank or wealth exempt^ them from the necessity of lucrative labor, have invented s[)orts and diversions, Avhich, though not of equal use to the world with man- ual trades, are yet of equal fatigue to those who practise them." It is finely observed by another eloquent philosopher,^ in account- ing, on natural princijiles, for man's love of war: Adam Ferguson. ,,-m. • i • t t t i • i — " iiivery animal is made to deliglit in the exer- cise of his natural talents and forces : the lion and the tiger sport with the paw ; the horse delights to commit his mane to the wind, and forgets his pasture to try his s})eed in the field ; the bull, even before his brow is armed, and the lamb, Avhile yet an emblem of innocence, have a disposition to strike with the forehead, and antic- ipate in play the conflicts they are doomed to sustain, Man, too, is disposed to opposition, and to employ the forces of his nature against an equal antagonist; he loves to bring his reason, his elo- (juence, his courage, even his bodily strength, to the proof. His sports are frequently an image of Avar; sweat and blood are freely expended in play ; and fractures or death are often made to terminate the pastime of idleness and festivity. He was not made to live for ever, and even his love of amusement has opened a way to the grave." 1 Rambler, No- 85. — Ed. 2 Adam Ferguson, Essay on the History of Civil Society. Part i tection iv. — Ed. I Lect. XLIV. METAPHYSICS. 605 " The young of all animals," says Paley/ " appear to me to receive pleasure simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily iaculties, without reference to any end to be attained, or any use to be answered by the exertion. A child, without knowing anything of the use of language, is in a hiixh degree delighted with being able to speak. Its incessant repetition of a few articulate sounds, or, perhaps, of the single word which it has learnt to pronounce, })roves this point clearly. Nor is it less pleased with its first successful endeavors to walk, or rather to run, (which precedes walking), although entirely ignorant of the impor- tance of the attainment to its future life, and even without a})])lying it to any present jturpose. A child is delighted with speaking, without having anything to say, and with walking, without knowing where to go. And prior to both these, I am disposed to believe, that the waking hours of infancy are agreeably taken up with the exercise of vision, or perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see. " But it is not for youth alone that the great Parent of cnsation hath provided. Hapj^iness is found with the purring cat, no less than with the playiul kitten; in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the si)rightliness of the dance, or the animation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to ardor of pursuit, succeeds, what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an equivalent for them all, 'perception of ease.' Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy, but when enjoying pleasure ; tlie old are happy, when free from jKiin. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power which they respectively possess. The vigor of youth was to be stimulated to action by impatience of rest ; whilst to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive gratifications. In one impor- tant respect, the advantage is with the old. A state of ease is, gen- erally speaking, more attaimible than a state of jdeasure. A con- stitution, therefore, which can enjoy ease, is preferable to that which can taste only i)leasure. This same perce|)tion of ease often- times renders old age a condition of great comfort, especially when riding at its anchor after a busy or tempestuous life." A strong confirmation of tiie doctrine, that all i)leasure is a reflex of activity, and that the free energy of every The theory conflnn- power is pleasurable, IS derived from the ph:p- cd by the i.iu..nonu..>a ,„„nena presented bv those aflections which we prcReiited by tlic I'ain- • n t ■ ' -i-» • r> i mi • e' fui Affections. empliatically denominate tlie Pamful. Tins tact is too striking, from its apparent inconsistency, not to have soon attracted attention : 1 NaturcU Theology. Works, vol. iv. chap, xxvl p 359. 606 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLIV. " Non tantum Sanctis instiuctae legibus urbes, Tectaque divitiis luxuriosa suis Mortalem alliciunt pulcra ad spectacula visum, Sed placet anuoso squalida terra situ. Oblectat pavor ipse animuin ; sunt gaudia curls, Et stupuisse juvat, quern doluisse piget." ^ Take, for example, in the first place, the affection of Grief, — the sorrow wo feel in the loss of a beloved object. Tie accompanie j^ ^j^j^ affection unaccompanied with pleasure ? with pleasure. ^ . . . So far is this from being the case, that the plea- sure so greatly predominates over the pain as to produce a mixed emotion, which is far more pleasurable than any other of which the wounded heart is susceptible. It is expressly stated by the younger Pliny, in a passage which commences with these Noticed by Pliny. \ ,, t-i t • t ^ t ^ . 1^ words: — "Est qutedam etiam dolendi voluptas, etc.* This has also been frequently signalized by the poets : Ovid. Thus Ovid : ^ ^. " Fleque meos casus : est quaedam flere voluptas; Expletur lacrymis egeriturque dolor." Thus Lucan : * of Cornelia after the murder of Pom« Lucan. pey: " Caput ferali obduxit amictu, Decrevitque pati tenebras, puppisque cavemis Delituit : saevumque arete complexa dolorem, Perfruitur lachrymis, et amat pro conjuge luctum." statius. Thus Statins : ^ " Nemo vetat, satiare mails ; asgrumque dolorem Libertate doma, jam flendi expleta voluptas.*' Seneca. Thus Seneca, the tragedian : ^ " Moeror lacrymas amat assuetas, Flendi miseris dira cupido est." Petrarch. Thus Petrarch :' 1 Virginias Caesarinus [Pofmata Virginii Cce- defleas, apud quem lacrymis tuis vel laus sit sarini, Vrbani viii. Pont. Opt. Max. Cubiculo parata, vel venia. — Ed. PrcT.fecti. Printed in Sejttem llluatrium Viro- 3 Tristia, iv. iii. 37. — Ed. rum Poemata. Amstelodami, apud Dan. * * Pharsalia.,ix. 108. — Ed. levirium, 1672, p. 465. — Ed. 5 11. Sylv. i. 14. — Ed. 2 Lib. viii Ep. 16: "Est quaedam etiam 6 Thyestes,].952. — Ki> dolendi voluptas; praesertim si in amici sinu ^ Epist. L. I. Barbato Sulmonensi. — Eo. Lect. xliv. metaphysics. 601 " Non omnia terrae Obruta; vivit amor, vivit dolor; era neha?nomena of our intellectual pleasures and Apsociation supposes pains ; but it is far from accounting for every- ts iu coniition pains ^^^. j^ ^ -^ g, ^scs, as its condition, that Jatl pleapuri's not ^- ' i i r i 1 bounded on itself. there arc pains and pleasures not tounde apprec.a e ^.^^ than has latterly been paid to them. " We the influence of Asso- «' '■ ciation. shall See hereafter," he says, and Aristotle said the same thing, " that associations of ideas make objects pleasant and delightful, which are not naturally apt to give any such pleasures; and the same way, the casual conjunction of ideas may give a disgust where there is nothing disagreeable in the form itself. And this is the occasion of many fantastic aversions to figures of some animals, and to some other forms. Thus swine, serpents of all kinds, and some insects really beautiful enough, are beheld with aversion, by many people who have got some acciden- tal ideas associated with them. And for distastes of this kind no other account can be given." ^ 1 See hia Essays on Taste. 6th edit. Edin- 3 Inquiry into the Origin 0/ our Ideas 0/ Beaut j burgh, 1825. — Ed. and Virtue, treatise i. sect, vi., 4th edition, p. 2 See Encydopadia Britanniea, art. Beauty, 73. — Ed. 7th edit. p. 487. — Ed. J" LECTURE XLV. THE FEELINGS. — THEIR CLASSES. Having thus terminated the consider.ation of the Feeliners con- sidered as Causes, — causes of Pleasure and The Feelings, — con- -d • t t . • t .. -r-i,« •idered us Effects. ^^^^' ~ ^ Pi"Oceed to Consider them as EtFects, — as products of the action of our diiFerent pow- ers. Now, it is evident, that, since all F'eeling is the state in which we are conscious of some of the energies or processes of life, as these energies or processes differ, so will the correla- As many different tive feelings. In a word, there will be as many ee ngs as ere are different Feelings as there are distinct modes of distinct modes of , . ^ mental activity. mental activity. In the Lecture in which I com- menced the discussion of the Feelings, I stated to you various distributions of these states by different philoso- phers.^ To these I do not think it necessary again to recur, and shall simply state to you the grounds of the division I shall adopt. As the Feelings, then, are not primitive and independent states, but merely states which accompany the exertion of Two grand classes <■ i.- .1 •, .• n ^ „ ,. our faculties, or the excitation ot our capacities, of teelings. . ' they must, as I have said, take their differences from the differences of the powers which they attend. Now, thougli all consciousness and all feeling be only mental, and, consequently, to say that any feeling is corporeal, would, in one point of view, be inac- curate, still it is manifest that there is a considerable number of men- tal functions, cognitive as well as apj)etent, clearly I. Sensations. , , , .' . , . ^^111* marked out as in proximate relation to the body; and to these functions we give the name of AVz/.s-iV/tv, A'«.v/Wt', »SV'?/- suous, or Sensual. Now, the feelings which accompany the exer- tion of these Sensitive or Corporeal Powers, wliethcr cognitive or appetent, will constitute a distinct class, .iiid to these we may, with great projiriety,- give the name of Sensations: whereas, on the Feelings which accompany the energies of all our higher powers of 1 See above. Icct xli. p. 570. — Kd. 614 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLV, mind, we may, with equal j)ropriety, bestow the name of /Senthnents. The lirst grand distribution of our feeUngs will, therefore, be into the Sensations, — that is, the Sensitive or External Feelings ; and into the Sentiments, — that is, the Mental or Internal Feelings. Of these in their order. 1. Of the Sensations. — The Sensations may be divided into two classes. The first class will contain those which ensations. wo accompany our perceptions through the five determinate Senses, — of Touch, Taste. Smell, Hearing, and Sight, — the Sensus J/Hxiis. The second class will comprise those sensations which are included 1. oi the Five undei- what has been called the Coenmsthesis, or Senses. /Se7isits Communis, — the Commoti /Sense, — Vital Sense, — Sensus Vagus, — such as the feelings of Heat and Cold, of Shuddering, the feeling of Health, of 2. Of the Sensus Muscular Tension and Lassitudc, of Hunger and Vagus. , . , Thirst, the v isceral Sensations, etc., etc' In regard to the determinate senses, each of these organs has its specific action, and its appropriate pleasure and The first c)ass con- -^ ^^^, ^j^gj.g jg ^ pleasure experienced in each sidered. ^ ' , . . -. , • , i of these, when an object is presented which de- termines it to suitable activity ; and a pain or dissatisfiiction experi- enced, when the energy elicited is either inordinately vehement or too remiss. This pleasure and pain, which is that alone belonging to the action of the living organ, and which, therefore, may be styled organic, we must distinguish from that higher Organic pleasure feeling, which, perhaps, results from the exercise and pain discriminated n -r • • it ^^ ^ ^ and illustrated ^^ Imagination and Intellect upon the pha^nom- ena delivered by the senses. Thus, I would call organic the pleasure we feel in the perception of green or blue, and the pain we feel in the perception of a dazzling white ; but I would be, perhaps, disposed to refer to some other power than the Ex- ternal Sense, the enjoyment we experience in the harmony of colors, and certainly that which we find in the proportions of figure. The same observation applies to Hearing. I would call organic the pleasure we have in single sounds; whereas the satisfaction we receive from the harmony, and, still more, from the melody of tones, seeins to require a higher faculty. This, however, is a very obscure and difiicult problem ; but, in whatever manner it be determined, the Aristotelic theory of pleasure and pain is the only one that can account for the phaenomena. Limiting, however, the organic pleasure, of which a sense is capable, to that from the activity de- 1 See above, lect. xxvii. p. 377. — Ed. Lkct. XLV. M K 1' A 1' H Y S I C S . 615 termined in it by its elementary objects, — this will be competent to every sense, but in very different degrees. In The degree of or- treating of the Cognitive Powers, I formeily no- ganic pleaHu.e deter- ^-^^^ ^j^.^^ j^^ .^,j ^j^^ g^^^^^g ^^ ^^^j^^ discriminate mined by tlie objec- tivity and subjectivity t^^'<^ i)lu'enomena, — the phaenomenon of Percejt- of the Sense. ; tion Proper, and the phajnomenon of Sensa- tion l*roper.' By jyerception is understood the objective relation of the sense, that is, the information obtained through it of the qualities of external existences in their action on the organ ; by sensation is understood the subjective relation of the «ense, that is, our consciousness of the aifection of the organ itseltj as acted on, — as affected by an object. I stated that these pha;- nomena were in an inverse ratio to each other, that is, the greater the perception the less always the sensation, the greater the sen- sation the less always the perception. I further observed, that, of the senses, some were more objective, others more subjective ; — that in some the phenomenon of perception predominated, in others the phainomenon of sensation ; that is, some gave us mucl^ information in regard to the (jualities of their object and little in regard to their own affection in the act; whereas the information we received from others, was almost limited exclusively to their own modification, when at work. Thus the two . ig an earing lijcrher scnses of Sight and Ilearini; mi^ht be objective: Taste and ° . ". . . Smell subjective ■ Considered as preeminently objective, the two hence in the two for- lower seuses of Taste and Smell might be con- mer, organic pleasure sidcrcd as preeminently subjective ; while the and pain feeble, in „™ i • i * i • i ,.i .. • i • i , ,. . sense of louch might be viewed as that m which two latter strong. * the two pha^nomena are, as it were, in ifquilihrio. Now, according to this doctrine, we ought to find the organic pleas- ure and pain in the two higher senses comparatively feeble, in the two lower, comj)aratively strong. And so it is. The satisfaction or dissatisfaction we receive from certain single colors and certain single sounds, in determining the organs of Sight and Hearing to perfect or imperfect activity, is small in proportion to the pleasure or the displeasure we are conscious of from the application of cer- tain single objects to the org;ins of Taste or Smell. So fir we may safely go. l>ut when it is re- iiow far the theory quired of US to explain, particularly and in ■, ■, >i ofthephanomena ^-'^n uf smell, assaUetida that other, ;uid so forth, and to say in what peculiar action does tlie per- fect or pleasurable, and the impi-rtcct or painful, activity of an organ 1 See above, lect. xxiv. p. 3.3."). — Vj>. 616 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLV. consist, we must at once profess our ignorance. But it is the same witli all our attempts at explaining any of the ultimate phaenomena of creation. In general, we may account for much ; in detail, we can rarely account for anything ; for we soon remount to facts which lie beyond our powers of analysis and observation. All that we can say in explanation of the agreeable in sensation^ is, that, on the general analogy of our being, when the impression of an object on a sense is in hai-mony with its amount of power, and thus allows it the condition of springing to full spontaneous energy, the result is pleasure ; whereas, when the impression is out of har- mony with the amount of power, and thus either represses it or stimulates it to over-activity, the result is pain. The same explanation, drawn from the obser- leorv app ica- yation of the phaenomena within our reach, must We to the Vital Sense. -^ be applied to the sensations which belong to the Vital Sense, but in regard to these it is not necessary to .say anything in detail. 11. The Mental or Internal P'eelings, — the Sentiments, — may be divided into Contemplative and Practical. II. Sentiments —di- ^j^^ former are the concomitants of our Cogni- rided into Contempla- • -r-> /> t-> > .«-( tive and Practical. ^^^^ Powers, the latter of our Powers ot Cona- tion. Of these in their order. The Contemplative Feelings are again distributed into twa classes, — into those of the Subsidiaiy Faculties Contemplative Feel- and those of the Elaborative ; and the Feelings ings divided into those accompanying the subsidiarv fliculties may be of the Subsidiary Fac- . ,,.."",,. , /^o i^/->i uioes- and of the again Subdivided mto those oi Seli-Consciousness Elaborative. The first Or Internal Perception, and into those of Imagi- ciass divided into nation, — Imagination being here employed to ose o e ■ OM- comprehend its relative faculty, the facultv of sciousness and of Im- ^ . . . agination. Reproduction. Of these in their order; and first of the Feelings or Sentiments attending the faculty of Reflex Perception or Self-Consciousness. By this faculty we become aware of our internal states ; that is, in other word.-*, that we live. Now we are con- a. Sentiments at- scious of our life Only as we are conscious of our tending Self-Con- . . ^ . „ eciousness. activity, and we are conscious oi our activity only as we are conscious of a change of state, — • for all activity is the going out of one state into another ; while, al the same time, we are only conscious of one state by contrast to, or as discriminated from, a preceding. Now pleas- Tedium or Ennui. , 7 , . ure, we have also seen, is the consciousness ot a vigorous and unimpeded energy ; pain, the consciousness of re- Lect. xlv. metaphysics. t31T pressed or impeded tendency to action. This being the case, if there be nothing which presents to our faculties the objects on which they may exert their activity, in other words, if there be no cause whereby our actual state may be made to pass into another, there results a peculiar irksome feeling for a want of excitement, which we denominate tedium or enmu. This feeling is like that of being unable to die, and not being allowed to live ; and sometimes becomes so oppressive that it leads to suicide or madness. The pain we experience in the feeling of Tedium, arises from the feeling of a repressed tendency to action ; and Arises from a re- j^ jg intense in proportion as this feeling is lively pressed tendency to , . t • i :i-i. j. xi i ^ • ^ . and vigorous. An inahility to thouccht is a action. _ ^ _ _ _ '' ^^ security against this feeling, and, therefore, te- dium is far less felt by the uncultivated than by the educated. The more varied the objects [tresented to our thought, — the more varied and vivacious our activity, the intenser will be Themore varied and . c ^• • i ^l ,. ., our consciousness ot living, and the more rap- vivacious- our activity, ... the intenser our con- idlv will the time appear to fly. IJut when ■we sciousmss of life, and look back u])on tlic scrics of tliouglits, with the more rapidly does ^^j^j^,,^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^,^^ OCCUpied the while, We time appear to fly. i , ,. • i • marvel at the apparent length ot its duration. Thus it is that, in travelling, a month seems to pass more rapidly than a week ; but cast a retrospect upon what has occurred, and occupied our attention during the interval, and the month appears to lengthen to a year. Hence we exjilain why we call our easy occupations pastimes ^' and why play is so en- I'astimes. gaging when it is at all deep. Games of hazard Games of chance and v , • x* i i i tietermine a continual change, ^ now Ave hope, and now we fear ; while in games of skill, we experience also the pleasure which arises from the activity of the understanding, in carrying through our own, and in frustrating the plan of our antagonist. All that relieves tedium, by affording a change and an easy exer- cise for our thoughts, causes pleasure. The best Tedium, how cured. /> . t • ^- i • i i cure of tedium is st)me occupation Avhicli, by cencentrating our attention on external objects, shall divert it from a retortion on ourselves. All occupation is either labor or play ; labor when there is some end ulterior to the activity, play when the activity is for its own sake .done. In both, however, there must 1)0 ever and .uion a change of object, or both will soon grow tiresoiiic. Labor is thus the best preventive of tedium, Wn- it lia-; an external motive Avhich holds us steadfast to ilie work: while atU*r the oom- wletion of our task, t!ie tceliiig of repose, as the cJi.ingc from the 78 618 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLV feeling of a constrained to that of a spontaneous state, affords a vivid and peculiar pleasure. Labor must alternate with repose, or we shall never know what is the true enjoyment of life. Thus it appears that a uniform continuity in our internal states is •gainful, and that pleasure is the result of their commutation. It is, however, to be observed, that the change of our The change of our per- perceptions and thoughts to be pleasing must ceptioiis aud thoughts , .,.,. , to be pleasing must "^^ '^^ ^^^ rapid ; for as the intervals, when too »ot be too rapid. long, produce the feeling of Tedium, so, when ,..,,. too short, they cause that of Giddiness or Ver- (jiduiness. ' •' tigo. The too rapid passing, for example, of visible objects or of tones before the Senses, of images before the Phantasy, of thoughts before the Understanding, occasions the dis- agreeable feeling of confusion or stupefaction, which, in individuals of very sensitive tempera- ment, results in Nausea, — Sickness.^ I proceed now to the Speculative Feelings which accompany the energies of Imagination. It has already been b. Sentiments con- ft-equgntly Stated, that whatever affords to a oomitant of Imagina- j. ./ ^ n •,■, ^jpjj power the mean ot full spontaneous energy is a cause of pleasure ; and that whatever eithei represses the free exertion of a power, or stinmlates it into strained activity, is the cause of pain. I shall now apply this law to the Imagination. Whatever, in general, focilitates the play of the Imagination, Condition of the is felt as pleasing; whatever renders it more nieasurabie applicable aifficult is felt as displeasing. And this applies to Imagination, both _ .. .-. , as Reproductive and equally to Imagination considered as merely as Plastic. reproductive of the objects presented by sense, or as combining these in the phantastic forms of its own productive, or rather plastic, activity. Considering the Phantasy merely as reproductive, we are pleased As Uniroduclive. .,1,1 . • , c 1 /» With tlie portrait oi a person whose race Ave know, if lik'e, because it enables us to recall the features into con- sciousness easily and freely; and we are displeased with it if unlike, because it not only does not assist, but thwarts us in our endeavor to recall them ; while after this has been accomplished, we are still iiirther pained by the disharmony we experience between the por- trait on the canvas and the representation in our own imagination. A ?yiort and characteristic description of things which we have seen, pleases us, because, without exacting a protracted effort of attention, and through a few striking traits, it enables the imagina- 1 See Marcus Herz, Ub»r dan Schtoindel, 1791- lkct. XLV. metaphysics. 619 tion to place the objects vividly before it. On the same j)i-inciple, whatever facilitates the reproduction of the objects which have been consigne^a.s'^ic.' Now this This reconstruction j-econstruction of materials by the Plastic Imag- mation is twofold; for it either arranges tliem in one representation, or in a series of representations. Of the pleasure Ave receive tVoiu single representations, I have already spoken ; it, therefore, only remains to consider the enjoyment we find in the activity of imagination, in .^^o f:ir as this is excited in concatenating a series of representations. I do not at present speak of any pleasure or pain which the contents of these concatenated representations may jiroduce; tlie.se are not feelings of imagination, but of aj)petency or conation; I have here exclusively in view the 1 See above. lect xxxiii p. 452. — Ed. 620 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLV feelings which accompany the facilitated, or impeded, energy of tliis. function of the phantasy. Now it is manifest that a series of rep- resentations are pleasing: — 1°, In proportion as Conditions of the ^^ severally call up in us a more varied and pleasurable, as regards , . ; the Understanding. harmonious mi age ; and, 2\ In proportion as they stand to each other in a logical dependence. This latter is, however, a condition not of the Imagination, but of the Understanding or Elaborative Faculty; and, therefore, befoi-e speaking of those feelings which accompany the joint energies of these faculties, it Avill l)e proper to consider those which arise from the operations of the Understanding by itself. To the«e, therefore,, I now pass on. The function of the Understanding may, in general, be said ta bestow on the cognitions which it elaborates,. Function of the Un- .-, , , .^, , , , ^ ^.^ the greatest possible compass (comprehension and extension), the greatest possible clearness and distinctness, the greatest possible certainty, and systematic order; and in as much as we approximate to the accomi:)lishment of these ends, we experience })leasure, in as much as we meet with, hindrances in our attempts, we experience pain. The tendency, the desire we have, to amplify the limits of our knowledge, is one of the strongest ])rinciples of human nature. To learn is thus pleas- urable ; to be frustrated in our attempted knowledge, ])ainful. Obscurity and confusion in our cognitions we feel as disagree- able ; whereas their clearness and distinctness Obscure and con- aifords US sincere gratification. We are pained fused cognitions,— i^i j iit !.•• . ,. ., by a hazy and perplexed discourse; but reioice how disagreeable. j j i i j j in one perspicuous and profound. Hence the pleasure we experience in having the cognitions we possessed, but darkling and confused, explicated into life and order; and, on this account, there is hardly a more pleasing object than a tabular con- spectus of any complex whole. We are soothed by a solution of a riddle ; and the wit which, like a flash of light- Wit, — how pleasing. . • -i •*• u * l,- * i • t ning, discovers similarities between objects which seemed contradictory, affc)rds a still intenser enjoyment. Our cognitions may be divided into two classes, — the Empirical or Historical, and the Rational. In the former Cognitions divided wc ouly apprehend the fact that they are ; in Into two classes,— .j-j^g latter, Ave comprehend the reason why they Kmpirical and Ua- ^i-n tt i t i /> t jj^jjj^j are. Ihe Understanding, tnereiore, does not for each demand "the same kind or degree of knowledge ; but in each, if its demand be successful, we are pleased; if unsuccessful, we are chagrined. Lkct. XLV. METAPHYSICS. 621 From the tendency of men towards knowledge and certainty, tliere arises a peculiar feeling whicli is commonly called the Feel- ing or Sentiment of Truth, but might be more Sentiment of Trutii, correctly Styled the Feeling or Sentiment of — w la , an w Convictiou. For we must not mistake this feel- j)leasurable. ing for the faculty by which we discriminate truth from error ; this feeling, as merely subjective, can determine nothing in regard to truth and error, which are, on the contrary, of an objective relation ; and there are found as many examples of men "who have died the confessors of an error they mistook for truth, as of men who have laid down their lives in testimony of the real txiuh. "Every opinion," says Montaigne,* "is strong enough to have had its martyrs." Be this, however, as it may, the feeling of conviction is a pleasurable sentiment, because it accompanies the consciousness of an unimpeded energy; "whereas the counter-feel- ing, — tliat of doubt or uncertainty, is a painful sentiment, because ic attends a consciousness of a thwarted activity. The uneasy feelinf' which is thus the concomitant of doubt, is a powerful stim- \ilus to the extension and perfecting of our knowleilge. The multitude, — the multifarious character, — of the objects j)resented to our observation, stands in signal (ieneraiization and contrast with the Very limited capacity of the 'jneciuCS'./on, — how ■■ • ^ n ^ 'Pi •* t i.' i • Ininjan nitellect. 1 Jus ilisnroportion constrams j)lea?v.raDle. • _ _ * ' _ us to classify; that is, by a comparison of the objects of sense to reduce these to notions; on these primary notions we rejieat the comparison, and thus carry them up into I'ligher, and these higher into highest, notions. This process is per- lornied by that function of the Understanding, which aj>prehends resemblances; and hence originate sj^ecies and genera in all their gradations. In this detection of the similarities between different ohjects, an energy of the understanding is fully and freely exerted; and hence results ajtleasure. But as in these classes, — these gen- eral notions, — the knowledge of individual existences loses in ])re- cision and completeness, Ave again endeavor to Hnd out ditferences in the things which stand inider a notion, to the end that we may ^e able to specify and in i conjunction. therefore, in the first place, to consider the feel- ings which arise from the a(;ts of Imagination and Understanding in conjunction. The feelings of satisfiction which result from the joint energy of the Understanding and Phantasy, are principally _^Beauty and Subiim- ^^^^^^ ^^ Beauty and Sublimity ; and the judg- ments which pronounce an object to be sublime, beautiful, etc., are called, by a metaphorical expression. Judgments of Taste. These have been also styled ^sthetical Judgments ; and the term ceslhetical has now, especially among the philosophers of Germany, nearly superseded the term taste. Both terms are unsatisfactory. The gratification we feel in the beautiful, the sublime, the pictur- esque, etc., is purely contemplative, that is, the feeling of pleasure which we then experience, arises solely from the consideration of the object, and altogether apart from any desire of, or satisfaction in, its possession. In the following observations, it is almost needless to observe, that I can make no attempt at more than a simple indi- cation of the origin of the pleasure we derive from the contempla- tion of those objects, which, from the character of the feelings they determine, are called beautiful, sublime, etc. In relation to the Beautiful, this has been distinguished into the Free or Absolute, and into the Dependent or Beauty distinguished Relative.' In the former case, it is not neces- as Absolute and Rela- ^ ■, . c ^ ^ j.\. i,- ^ \ 4. ^.yg sary to have a notion oi what the object ought to be, before we pronounce it beautiful or not ; in the latter case, such a previous jiotion is required. Flowers, * See Hutchcson, Inquiry, treatise i. sects. 2, 4. — Ed. k Lect. XLYL metaphysics 025 shells, arabesques, etc., are freely or absolutely beautiful. We judge, for example, a flower to be beautiful, though unaware of its tU'stination, and that it contains a complex apparatus of organs all admirably adapted to the propagation of the jilant. When we are made cognizant of this, we obtain, indeed, an additional gratifica- tion, but one wholly different from that which we experience in the contemplation of the flower itself, apart from all consideration of its adaptations. A house, a pillar, a piece of furniture, are depend- ently or relatively beautiful; for here the object is judged beautiful by reference to a certain end, for the sake of which it exists. This distinction, which is taken by Kant^ and others. This distincuon uu- appears to me u;isound. For Relative Beauty is only the confusion of two elements, which ought to have been kept distinct. There is no doubt, I think, that certain objects please us directly and of themselves, that is, no ref- erence being had to aught beyond the form itself which they exhibit. These are things of themselves beautiful. Other things, again, please us not directly and of themselves, that is, their form ])rcsents nothing, the cognition of which results in an agreeable feeling. But these same things may please indirectly and by rela- tion ; that is. when we are informed that they liave a purpose, and are made aware of their adaptation to its accomplishment, we may derive a pleasure from the admirable relation which here subsists between the end and means. These are things Useful. But the pleasure which results from the contemplation The Useful and the ^^ ^j^^, ^^^^^^.^j j^ ^^1^^]]^. different from that which l?eaufiful distiuct. , -, * , • r. i i • • i results from the contem|)lation of the beautiful, and, therefore, they ought not to be confounded. It may, indeed, luvpjien that the same object is such as affords us both kinds of pleasure, aii- *i i i i' i -^^ i i / r * . i . . us that he had written a book (uiifortunatelv |)crior to the modern. _ ^ lost), addressed to Ilierius, the Kom.m rheto- rician, under the title De Apto et Pulcro, in which he maintained, that the be.-iutiful is that which pleases absolutely and of itself, the well-ada])ted that which pleases from its accommodation to some- thing else. " Pulcrum esse, quod per se ipsuin ; aptum, autem, quod ad aliquid accommodatum deceret."- 1 Partially, perhaps; see Krilik drr Vrtheils- he refers both to the faculty of Judgment Icrafi, H 6, 10. But Kant di.xtinKui.rineiple of which I 628 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLW we have been just considering. The other of these pleasures is that whicl), in our last Lecture, we showed was attached to a perfect energy of the Understanding, in thinking an object under the notion of conformity as a mean adapted to an end. A judgment of Taste may be called inire^ when the pleasure it enounces is one exclusively derived from the •.u" ^r*^" ^ HT- ^A Beautiiul, and mixed, when with this pleasure «ither Pure or Mixed. ' _ ' ^ v v, there are conjoined feelings of pain or pleasure from other sources. Such, for example, are the organic excitation.s of particular colors, tones, etc., emotions, the moral feeling, the feel- ing of pleasure from the sublime, etc. It requires a high cultiva- tion of the taste in order to find gratification in a pure beauty, and also to separate from our judgment of an object, in this respect, all that is foreign to this source of pleasure. The uncultivated man at first finds gratification only in those qualities which stimulate his organs; and it is only gradually that he can be educated to pay attention to the form of objects, and to find pleasure in what lightly exercises his faculties of Imagination e eau 1 u e- and Thought, — the Beautiful. The result, then, fined. o ' ^ ^ 11 of what has now been said is, that a thing beau- tiful is one whose form occupies the Imagination and Understand- ing in a free and full, and, consequently, in an agreeable, activity : and to this definition of the Beautiful all others may without diffi- culty be reduced ; for these, like the definitions of the pleasurable, are never absolutely fiilse, but, in general, only partial expressions of the truth. On these it is, however, at present impossible to touch. The feeling of pleasure in the Sublime is essentially different from our feeling of pleasure in the Beautiful. The Sublime, -the rpj^^ beautiful awakcns the mind to a soothing feeling partly pleasur- . i i i- • ^i3ig contemplation ; the subhme rouses it to strong emotion. The beautiful attracts without repel- ling ; whereas the sublime at once does both ; the beautiful affords lis a feeling of unmingled pleasure, in the full and unimpeded activ- ity of our cognitive powers; whereas our feeling of sublimity is a mingled one of pleasure and j^ain, — of pleasure in the conscious- ness of the strong energy, of pain in the consciousness that this energy is vain. But as the amount of pleasure in the sublime is greater than the amount of pain, it follows, that the free energy eory o e u - ^^ elicits must bd greater than the free enersry lime. _ ^ ='•' it rej>els. The beautiful has reference to the form of an object, and the facility with which it is comprehended. Lect. XLVI. METAPHYSICS. 629 For beauty, magnitude is thus an irni)e(liment. Sublimity, on the contrary, requires magnitude as its condition ; and the formless is not unfrequently sublime. That we are at once attracted and re- pelled by sublimity, arises from the circumstance that the olyect which we call sublime, is proportioned to one of our faculties, and disproportioned to another; but as the degree of })leasure transcemls the degree of pain, the power whose energy is promoted must be superior to that power whose enei'gy is repressed. The sublime has been divided into two kinds, the Theoretical and the Practical, or as they are also called, the The Sublime, -di- Mathematical and the Dynamical.* A prefer- rided into that of Ex- ,,,... iii t i , , , -. . . able division would be accoi-diiijj: to the three teu^ioii, I'roteusion, _ » and Intension. quantities, — into the sublime of Extension, the sublime of Protension, and the sublime of In- tension ; or, what comes to the same thing, — the sublime of Sj)ace, the sublime of Time, and the sublime of Power. In the two former the cognitive, in the last the conative, powers These divisions iiius- come into play. An object is extensively, or *'"^'^'^' protensively sublime, when it comprises so great Tlie Sublime of Ex- ^ , ■ -, n , , t • • • , tension «ud I'roten- ^ multitude ot parts that tiic Imagination sinks sion. under the attemi)t to i-epresent it in an image, and the Understanding to measure it bv refer- ence to other quantities. BafHed in the attempt to reduce the object within the limits of the faculties by which it must be com- prehended, the mind at once desists from the ineffectual eftbrt, and conceives the object not by a positive, but by a negative, nution ; it conceives it as inconceivable, and falls liack into repose, which is felt as pleasing by contrast to the continuance ot" a lbrcei exertion -in J ! Knut, Kritile der VrtluilskrnJX , f 'i4 et irq. — Ed. 630 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XL VI from the instantaneous repose; pain, from the consciousness of limited and frustrated activity. This mixed feeling in the contemplation of a sublime object is finely expressed by Lucretius when he says: " Me quaedam divina voluptas, Percipit atque liorror." i I do not know a better example of the sublime, in all its thre* forms, than in the following passage of Kant : - " Two things there are, which, the oftener and the more stead- fastly we consider, fill the mind with an ever The Sublime, in its new, an cvcr rising admiration and reverence ; three forms, exempli- _ ^J^^ StARRY HeavEN uhovC, the MoRAL LaW tied in a passage from r\i^ • t t jjjj,,, within. Of neither am I compelled to seek out the reality, as veiled in darkness, or only to con- jecture the possibility, as beyond the hemisphere of my knowledge. Both I contemplate lying clear before me, and connect both imme- diately with my consciousness of existence. The one departs from the place I occupy in the outer world of sense ; expands, beyond the bounds of imagination, this connection of my body with worlds lying beyond worlds, and systems blending into systems ; and pro- tends it also into the illimitable times of their periodic movement, — to its commencement and continuance. The other departs from my invisible self, from my personality ; and represents me in a world, truly infinite indeed, but whose infinity can be tracked out only by the intellect, with which also my connection, unlike the fortuitous relation I stand in to all worlds of sense, I am compelled to recognize as universal and necessary. In the former the first view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates, as it were, my importance as an animal 2>''odiict^ which, after a brief and that incomprehensible endowment with the powers of life, is compelled to refund its constituent matter to the planet — itself an atom in the universe — on which it grew. The aspect of the other, on the contrary, elevates my worth as an intelligence even without limit ; and this through my personality, in which the moral law reveals a faculty of life independent of my animal nature, nay, of the whole material world : — at least, if it be permitted to infer as much from the regulation of my being, which a conformity with that law exacts; proposing, as it does, my moral worth for the absolute end of my activity, conceding no compromise of its imperative to a necessitation of nature, and spurning, in its infinity, the conditions and boundaries of my present transitory life." 1 iii. 28. — Ed 2 Kritik tier practischen Vemun/t, Beschlusa. — Ed. Lect. XL VI. METAPHYSICS. ' 631 " Spirat cnim majora animus seque altius effort Sidcribus, transitquc vias et nuhila fati, Et momenta preniit pcdibus quaieunqiic putantur Fif^ere piopcsitani natali tempore sortcm."i Here wo have the extensive sublime in the heavens and their interminable space, the protensive sublime in their illimitable dura- tion, and the intensive sublime in the omnipotence of the human will, as manifested in the unconditional imperative of the moral law. The Picturesque, however, opposite to the Sublime, seems, in my opinion, to stand to the Beautiful in a somewhat The Picturcs(|uc,— similar relation. An object is positively ugly, wherein it consist., ^^,|^(.„ j^ jg ^f g^^^j^ ^ f^j.^^j ^j^j^j. ^j^^, Imaoination and how it diflers _^ ' . from the Sublime and ^"<^ U uderstandnig cannot help attemptnig to Beautiful. think it up into unity, and yet their energies are still so impeded that they either fail in the en- deavor, or accomplish it only ini])erfcctly, after time and toil. The cause of this continuance of effort is, that the object does not pre- sent such an appearance of incongruous variety as at once to com- ]>el the mind to desist from the attempt of reducing it to unity, but, on the contrary, leads it on to attempt what it is yet unable to ])erform, — its reduction to a whole. But variety, — variety even apart from unity, — is pleasing; and if the mind be made content to expatiate freely and easily in this variety, without attempting pain- fully to reduce it to unity, it will derive no inconsiderable pleasure from this exertion of its powers. Now a picturesque object is pre- cisely of such a character. It is so determinately varied and so abrupt in its variety, it ])resents so complete a negation of all rounded contour, and so regular an irregularity of broken lines and angles, that every attempt at reducing it to an harmonious whole is at once found to be impossible. The mind, therefore, which niust forego the energy of representing and thinking the object as a unity, surren- ders itself at once to the energies which deal with it only in detail. I proceed now to those feelings which I denominated Practical, — those, namely, which have their root in the The Practical Feel- po^,^.,.^ ^^f Conation, and thus liave reference to overt action. The Conative, like the Cognitive, ]>owers are divided into a higher an• % i- ' iti !•• immediately relative to our bodily condition. The fonner may be called tlie Pathological, the latter the Moral 1 Frudcntius, Conim Sym. ii. 479. Quoted in Discussions, p. 311. — Kd. t)32 METAPHYSICS. Lect. XLVl Neglecting this distribution, the Practical Feelings are relative eitlier — 1°, To our Self-preservation; or, 2", To the Enjoyment of our Existence ; or, 3°, To the Preservation of the Species ; or, 4°, To our Tendency towards Development and Perfection ; or^ 5°, To the Moral Law. Of these in their order. In the first place, of the feelings relative to Self-preservation ; — these are the feelings of Hunger and Thirst, of lose re a ive — . Loathing, of Sorrow, of Bodilv Pain, of Repose, To Self-preservation. , . ' of Fear at danger, of Anxiety, of Shuddering, of Alarm, of Composure, of Security, and the nameless feeling at the Representation of Death. Several of these feelings are corpo- real, and may be considered, with equal 2>ropriety, as modifications of the Vital Sense. In the second place, man is determined not only to exist, but to exist well ; he is, therefore, determined also to -. .njojmen o ex- (jgsire whatever tends to render life agreeable, istence. ° _ ' and to eschew whatever tends to render it dis- agreeable. All, therefore, that appears to contribute to the former, causes in him the feeling of Joy ; whereas, all that seems to threaten the latter, excites in him the repressed feelings of Fear, Anxiety, Sorrow, etc., which we have already mentioned. In the third place, man is determined, not only to preserve him- self, but to preserve the species to which he be- 3. Preservation of i i -^i ^i • ^ j • r i- longs, and with this tendency various ieelin - ,, rr^ commands the lulnlment of its behests. 'This- supposes, that we are able to fulfil tliem, or our nature is a lie ; and the liberty of human action is thus, independently of all direct con- sciousness, involved in the datum of the Law of Duty. Inasmuch also as Moral Intelligence unconditionally commands us to perform what we are conscious to be our duty, there is attributed to man an absolute worth, — an absolute dignity. TJie feeling which the man- ifestation of this worth excites, is called Respect. With the con- sciousness of the lofty nature of our moral tendencies, and our ability to fulfil what the law of duty prescribes, there is connected the feeling of Self-respect; whereas, from a consciousness of the contrast between what we ought to do and what we actually per- form, there arises the feeling of Self-abasement. The sentiment of respect for the law of duty is the Moral Feeling, which has by some been improperly denominated the Moral Sense ; for through this feeling we do not take cognizance whether anything be morally good or morally evil, but when, by our intelligence, we recognize aught to be of such a character, there is lierewith associated a feel- ing of pain or j)loasure, which is nothing more than our state in reference to the fulfilment or violation of the law. Man, as conscious of his liberty to act, and of the law by which his actions ought to be regulated, recognizes his ])er8onal accounta- bility, and calls himself before the internal tribunal whicii we de- nominate Conscience. Here he is cither aopiitted or condemne«L The acquittal is connected with a jieculiar feeling of pleasurable exultation, as the condemnation Avith a peculiar feeling of painful humiliation, — Remorse. 80 APPENDIX. L A. — FRAGMENT ON ACADEmCAL HONORS.— (1836 > (See p. 13.) Before commencing the Lecture of to-day, I wouki occupy a few minutes with a matter in which I am confident you generally feel an interest ; — I refef to the Academical Honors to be awarded to those who approvi; their zeal and ability in the business of the Class. After what I formerly had occasion to say, 1 conceive it wholly unnecessary now to attempt any jnoof of the fact, — that it is not by anything done by others for you, but by what alone you do for yourselves, that your intellectual improvement must be determined. Read- ing and listening to lectures are only profitable, inasmuch as they aflTord you the means and the occasions of exerting your faculties; — foi tiiese faculties are only developed in proportion as they are exercised. This is a principle I take for granted. A second fact, I am assured you will also allow me to assume, is, that al- though strenuous energy is the one condition of all improvement, — yet this energy is, at first and for a long time, comparatively panful. It is painful, be- cause it is imperfect. But as it is gradually perfected, it becomes gradually more pleasing, and when finally pei-fect, that is, when its power is fully devel- oped, it is purely pleasurable ; for ])U'asure is nothing but tiie concomitant or n-lk'x of the unforced and unimpeded energy of a faculty or habit, — the de- gree of pleasure being always in proportion to the degree of such energy. The great jjroblem in education is, tlicrefbrc, how to induce the pupil to undertake and go tiiroMgli with a coui"se of exertion, in its result good and even agreeable, lint iiniiicdiatcly and in itself irksome. There is no royal road to learning. '• Tlie gods," says Epicliarnuis,' "sell us everytiiing for toil;" and the curse in- herited from Adam, — that in the sweat of his face man should eat his bread. — is true of every Iiuman acijuisition. Hesiod, not less beautifully than i)hilo- sophically, sings of the paini'nl conunencement, and the j>lea.'. -' Oii-ra rt Dir.i, 287. — Ed. 036 APPENDIX. (a passage which, it will be recollected, Milton has not less beautifully imi- tated) ; * and the Latin poet has, likewise, well expressed the principle, touch ing literary excellence in particular: • " Gaudent sudoribus artes Et sua difficilem reddiint ad limiua cursum." 2 But as the pain is immediate, while the profit and the pleasure are remote, you will grant, I presume, without difficulty, a third fact, that the requisite de- gree and continuance of effort can only be insured, by applying a stimulus to counteract and overcome the repressive effect of the feeling with which the exertion is for a season accompanied. A fourth fact will not be denied, that emulation and the love of honor constitute the appropriate stimulus in educa- tion. These affections are of course implanted in man for the wisest p^rf^ses and, though they may be misdirected, the inference from the possibility of their abuse to the absolute inexpediency of their employment, is invalid. However disguised, their influence is universal : "Ad basse Romanus, Graiusque, et Barbarus induperator Erexit : causas discriminis atque laboris lude habuit;"3 and Cicero shrewdly remarks, that the philosophers themselves prefix their names to the very books they write on the contempt of glory.'* These passions actuate most powerfully the noblest minds. " Optinios mortalium," s says the father of the Senate to Tiberius, — " Optimos mortalium altissima cupere : con- temptu famaj contemni virtutes." " Natura," says Seneca,** " gloriosa est virtus,, et anteire priores cupit; " and Cicero,' in more proximate reference to our im- mediate object, — " Honor alit artes omnesque incenduntur ad studia gloria." But, though their influence be universal, it is most powerfully conspicuous in the young, of whom Aristotle has noted it as one of the most diserhninating characteristics, that they are lovers of honor, but still more lovers of victory." If, therefore, it could be but too justly proclaimed of man in general; • '• Quis euini virtutem amplectitiir ipsam, Prajmia si tollas? "9 it was Iea.st of all to be expected that youth should do so. " In learning," says the wisdom of Bacon, " the flight will be [low and] slow without some feathers of ostentation."'" Nothing, therefore, could betray a greater ignorance of hu- man nature, or a greater negligences in employing the most efficient mean 1 Sir VV. Hamilton here probably refers to < Pro Arrhia, c. 11. — Ed. the lilies in Lyci/las, — •'> Tacitus, Ann. iv. .38. — Ed. " Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth '! De Bmeficiis, iii. 36. — Ed. raise,"' etc. — Ed. "! Tusc. Quasi, i. 2. — _Ed. 2 B. Mantuanus, Carmen de suscepto Thenlng- s Ji/iet ii. 12 — Ed. iro Magisterin.! Opera, Antverpiae, 157G, tom. i. !' Juveual Sat. x. 141 Ed. p. 174. — Ed. 10 Essay liv. 0/ Vain Glory -.- Ed. 3 Juvenal, .S««. x. 138. — Ed. APPENDIX. 68" within its grasp, thaa for any seminary of education to leave unapplied these great promoting principles of activity, and to take for granted that its pupils ■would act precisely as they ought, though left with every inducement strong against, and without any sufficient motive in tavor of, exertion. Now. I express, I believe, the universal sentiment, both within and without these walls, in saying, that this University has been unhappily all too remiss, in leaving the most powerful mean of academical education nearly, if not alto- gether, unemployed. You will observe I use the term Vniverxity in contradic- tion to individual Profes.sors, for many of these have done much in this respect, and all of them, I believe, are satisfied that a great deal more ought to be done. But it is not in the power of individual instructors to accomplish what can be only accomplished by the public institntidii. The rewards proposed to merito- rious effort are not sufficiently honoi-able ; and the efforts to which they are frequently accorded, not of the kind or degree to be of any great or general advantage. I shall explain myself. A distinction is sought after with a zeal proportioned to its value ; and its value is measured by the estimation which it holds in public opmion. Now, though there are prizes given in many of our classes, nothing has been done to give them proper value by raising them in public; estimation. Thej' are not conferred as matters of importiince by any external solemnity ; they are not conferred in any general meeting of the University ; far less under circum- stances which make their distribution a matter of public curiosity and interest. Compared to the jjubluity that might easily have been secured, they are left, so to speak, to be given in holes and corners; and while little thought of to- day, are wholly foigotten to-morrow ; so that the wonder only is, that what the University has thus treated with such apparent contempt, .should have awak- ened even the inadccjuate emulation that has been so laudably dis])layed. Of this great defect in oui- discipline, I may safely say that every Professor is aware, and it is now actually under the consideration of the Senatus, what are the most expedient measures to obtain a system of means of full efficiency for the encouragement and reward of academical merit. It will, of course, form the foundation of any such improvement, that the distribution of prizes be made an act of the University at large; and one of the most public and impos- ing character. By this means a far more powerful emulation will be roused ; a ,«pirit which will not be limited to a certain pioportion of the students, but will more or less pervade the whole; nay, not merely the students themselves, but their families; so that when this .system is brought to its adequate perfection, it will be next to impossible for a young man of generous dis]»()sition not to put forth every energy to raise himself as high as possible in tlie scale of so honor- able a competition. But, besides those who can only be affected by an act of the whole Univer- sity, important improvement may, I think, be accomplished in this respect in the several classes. In what I now say, I wouM not be s)ip|)osed to exjire^s any opinion in regard to other classes; but confine mv ol)scrvations to one nn der the cinimistanccs of our own. In the first plai-e, then, I am convinced that excitement and rewards are principally required to promote a general and continued diligence in the onli- nary business of the class. I mean, thercfon-, that the prizes should with us be •338 APPENDIX. awarded for general eminence, as shown In the Examinations and Exercises; and I am averse on principle from proposing any premium during the course of the sessional labors for single and detached efforts. The effect of this would naturally be to distract attention from wliat ought to be the principal and con- stant object of occupation ; and if honor is to be gained by an irregular and transient spirit of activity, less encouragement will necessarily be afforded to regular and sedulous application. Prizes for individual Essays, for Written Analyses of important books, and for Oral Examination on their contents, may, however, with great advantage, be proposed as occupation during the summer vacation ; and this I shall do. But the honors of the Winter Session must be- long to those who have regularly gone through its toils. In the second place, the value of the prizes may be greatly enhanced by giving them greater and more permanent publicity. A very simple mode, and one which I mean to adopt, is to record upon a tablet each year, the names of the successful competitors ; this tablet to be permanently affixed to the walls of the class-room, while a duplicate may, in like manner, be placed in the Common Reading-Room of the Library. In the third place, the importance of the prizes for general eminence in the l>usiness of the class may be considerably raised, by making the competitors the judges of merit among themselves. This I am persuaded is a measure of the very highest efficiency. On theory I would argue this, and in practice it has been fully verified. On this head, I shall quote to you the experience of my venerated preceptor, the late Professor Jardlne of Glasgow, — a man, I will make bold to say, who, in the chair of Logic of that University, did more for the intellectual improvement of his pupils than any other public instructor in this country within the memory of man. This he did not accomplish either by great erudition or great philosophical talent, — though he was both a learned and an able thinker, — but by the application of that primary prin- ciple of education, which, wherever employed, has been employed with suc- cess, — I mean the determination of the pupil to self-activity, — doing nothing for him which he Is able to do for himself. This principle, which has been always inculcated by theorists on education, has, however, by few been carried fully into effect. " One difficult and very important part," says Mr. Jardine,! " in administering the system of prizes, still remains to be stated; and this is the method by which the different degrees of merit are determined; a point in which any error with regard to principle, or suspicion of practical mistake, would completely destroy all the good effects aimed at by the establishment in question. It has been already mentioned, that the qualifications which form the ground of competition for the class prizes, as they are sometimes called, and which are to be distinguished from the university prizes, are diligence, regularity of attendance, general eminence at the daily examinations, and in the execution of themes, propriety of academical conduct, and habitual good manners; and, on these heads it is very obvious, a judgment must be pronounced either by the professor, or by the students themselves, as no others have access to the requisite information. "It may be imagined, at first view, that the office of judge would be best performed bj' the professor; but after long experience, and much attention to the subject m all its bearings, I am inclined to give a decided preference to the exercise of this right as vested in the students. Were the professor to take this duty upon himself, it would be impos- 1 Outlines of Philosophical Education, etc , pp. 384, 385; 387, 389 APPENDIX. 631. sible, even witli the most perfect conviction, on the part of the students, that his judg- ment and candor were unimpeachable, to give satisfaction to all parties; wliile, on the other hand, were there the slightest reason to suspect his impartiality, in either of these points, or the remotest ground for insinuation that he gave undue advantage to any indi- viduals, in bringing forward their claims to the prejudice of others, the charm of emu- lation would be dissolved at once, and every future effort among his pupils would be enfeebled. ******** " The indispensable qualities of good judges, then, are a competent knowledge of the grounds upon which their judgment is to rest, and a firm resolution to determine on the matter before them with strict impartiality. It is presumed that the students, in thess respects, are sufficiently qualified. They are every day witnesses of the manner in which the business of the class goes on, and have, accordingly, the best opportunities of judging as to tlie merits of their fellow-students; they have it in their power to ob- serve the regularity of their attendance, and the general propriety of their conduct; they hear the questions which are put, with the answers which are given; their various themes are read aloud, and observations are made on them from the chair. They have, likewise, an opportunity of comparing the respective merits of all the competitors, ia the extemporaneous exercises of the class ; and they, no doubt, hear the performances of one another canvassed in conversation, and made the subject of a comjjarative esti- mate. Besides, as everj' individual is, himself, deeply interested, it is not possible but that he should pay the closest attention to what is going on around him ; whilst he can- not fail to be aware that he, in like manner, is constantly observed by others, and sub- jected to the ordeal of daily criticism. In truth, the character, the abilities, the dili- gence, and progress of students, are as well known to one another, before the close of the session, as their faces. There cannot, therefore, be any deficiency as to means of information to enable them to act the part of enlightened and upright judges. " But they likewise possess the otlier requisite for an equitable decision; for the great majority have really a desire to judge honorably and fairly on the merit of their fellows. The natural candor and generosity of youth, the sense of right and obligations of jus- tice, are not yet so perverted, by bad example and the way* of the world, as to pennit any deliberate intention of violating the integrity on which they profess to act, or any wish to conspire in supporting an unrighteous judgment. There is greater danger, per- haps, that young persons, in their circumstances, may allow themselve< to be influenced by friendship or personal dislike, rather than by the pure and unbiassed sense of meri- torious exertion, or good abilities; but, on the other hand, when an individual consider.* of how little consequence his single vote will be among so many, it is not at all likely that he will be induced to sacrifice it either to fricndshi]) or to enmity. There are, how- ever, no perfect judges in any department of human life. Prejudices and un|)erceived biasses make their way into the minds even of the most upright of our fellow-creatures; and there can be no doubt that votes are sometimes thrown away, or injudiciously given, by young students in the Logic class. Still, these little aberrations are never found te disturb the operation of the general principle on which the scale of merit is determined, and the list of honors filled up." Now, Gcntli'mcn, from what 1 know of you, I think it almost neetlloss to say, that, in confiding to you a function on the intelligent ami upright discharge of which the value and significance of the ])ri/cs will wholly depend, I do this without any anxiety for the result. I am sure at least that if aught l)e want- ing, the defect will be found neitlier in your incompetency nor want of will. And here I would conchide what I pro])ose to say to you on this sniiject ; (this has extended to a far greater length than I anticipated) ; I wotdd ron- clude with a most earnest exhortation to those who may be discouraged from coming forwanl as competitors for academical honors, from a feeling or a fancy 640 A p r J", X D I X . of inferiority. In the first place, I would dissuade them from this, because they may be deceived in the estimate of their own powers. Many individuals do not become aware of their own talents, till placed in circumstances which compel them to make strenuous exertion. Then they and those around them discover the mistake. In the second place, even though some of you may now find yourselves somewhat inferior to others, do not for a moment despair of the future. The most powerful minds are frequently of a tardy development, and you may rest assured, that the sooner and more vigorously you exercise your faculties, the speedier and more complete will be their evolution. In the third place, I exhort you to remember that the distinctions now to be gained, are on their own account principally valuable as means towards an end, — as motives to induce you to cultivate your powers by exercise. All of you, even though nearly equal, cannot obtain equal honors in the struggle, but all of }ou will obtain advantage equally- substantial, if you all, what is wholly in your own power, equally put forth your energies to strive. And though you should all endeavor to be first, let me remind you, in the words of Cicero, that -^ " Prima sequentem, pulchrum est in secundis, tertiisque consistere." ^ B. — FRAGMENTS ON THE SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY. (a) Portion of Introductory Lecture C1836). Before entering on the proposed subjects of consideration, I must be allowed a brief preliminary digression. In entering on a course of the Philosophy of Mind, — of Philosophy Proper, — we ought not, as Scotsmen, to forget that on this is, and always has been, principally founded the scientific reputation of Scotland ; and, therefore, that independently of the higher claims of this philosophy to attention, it would argue almost a want of patriotism in us, were we to neglect a study with the successful cultivation of which our country, and in particular this University, have been so honorably associated. Whether it be that the characteristic genius of our nation — the prceferiu- dum Scotorum ingenium — was more capable of powerful effort than of perse- vering industry, and, therefore, carried us more to studies of principle than studies of detail; or (what is more probable), that institutions and circum- stances have been here less favorable, than in other countries, for the promo- tion of ei-udition and research ; certain it is that the reputation for intellectual capacity which Scotland has always sustained among the nations of Europe, is founded far less on the achievements of her sons in learning and scholarship, than on what they have done, or shown themselves capable of doing, in Philos- ophy I'roper and its dependent sciences. In former ages, Scotland presented but few objects for scientific and literary ambition ; and Scotsmen of intellectual enterprise usually sought in other coun- 1 Orator, c. i. APPENDIX. 641 tries, that education, patronage, and applanse, which were denied them in their own. It is, indeed, an honorable testimony to the natural vigor of Scottish tal- «^nt, that, while Scotland afforded so little encouragement for its production, a complement so large in amount, and of so high a quality, should have been, as it were, spontaneously supplied. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centu- ries, there was hardly to be found a Continental University without a Scottish professor. It was, indeed, a common saying, that a Scottish pedlar and a Scot- tish professor were everywhere to be met with. France, however, was long the great nursery of Scottish talent; and this even after the political and re!i"ious estrangement of Scotland from her ancient ally, by the establishment of the Reformation, and the accession of the Scottish monarch to the English crown ; and the extent of this foreign ])atronage may be estimated from the fact, that a single prelate — the illustrious Cardinal Du Perron — is recorded to have found places in the seminaries of France for a greater number of literarr Scotsmen than all the schools and universities of Scotland maintained at home.' But this favor to our countrvmen was not without its reasons : and the around of partiality was not their superior erudition. What principally obtained ibr them reputation and patronage abroad, was their dialectical and metaphysical acuteness ; and this they were found so generally to possess, that philosophical talent became almost a proverbial attribute of the nation.'- During the ascendant of the Aristotelic philoso])hy, and so long as de.\terity in disputation was considered the highest academical accomplishment, the logical subtlety of our countrymen was in high and general demand. But they were remarkable less as writers than as instructors ; for were we to consider them only in the former capacity, the works that now remain to us of these expatri- ated philosophei's, — these Scnti erfra Scotinm agrntcs, — though neither few nor unimportant, would still never enable us to account for the high and pe- culiar reputation which the Scottish dialecticians so long enjoyed throughout Europe. Such was the literary character of Scotland, before the cstabKshment of her intellectual independence, and such has it continued to the present day. In illustration of this, I cannot now attempt a comparative survey of the contribu- tions made by this country and others to the different departments of knowl- edge, nor is it lu'cessary ; for no one, I am assured, will deny that it is only in the Philosophy of Mind that a Scotsman has established an epoch, or that Scot- land, by the consent of Eun)[ie, has bi-stowcd her name upon a School. The man Avho gave the whole philosophy of Europe a new impulse and di- rection, and to whom, mediately or inunediately, must be referred every subso- (pient advance in philosophical speculation, was our cou!itrvnian, — David Hume. In speaking of this illustrious thinker, I feel an.xious to be distimtly understood. I would, therefore, earnestly request of you to bear in mind, that religious disbelief and philosophical skepticism are not menly not the same, but have no natural connection; and that while the one must ever be a matter of re[irobation and regret, the other is in itself deserving of applause. Both were united in Hume; and this union has unfortunately contnl)uted to associate them together in popular opinion, and to involve them e(iua!ly in one vague condemnation. They must, therefore. I repeat, be accurately distinguished; I See Discussions, p..l20. — Ed. •-' .See Dtscussions, p. 119 — El» 81 642 A p p !•: X D 1 X . and thus, though decidedly opposed to cue and all of Hume's theological con- clusions, I have no hesitation in asserting of his philosophical skepticism, that this was not only beneficial in its results, but, in the circiunstances of the pe- riod, even a necessary step in the progress of Philosophy towards truth. In the first place, it was requisite in order to arouse thought from its lethargy. Men had fallen asleep over their dogmatic systems. In Germany, the Rationalism of Leibnitz and Wolf; in England, the Sensualism of Locke, with all its mel- ancholy results, had subsided almost into established faiths. The Skepticism of Hume, like an electric spark, sent life through the paralyzed opinions ; philos- ophy awoke to renovated vigor, and its problems were again to be considered in other aspects, and subjected to a more searching analysis. .1 1 In the second place, it was necessary, in order to manifest the inadequacy of the prevailing system. In this respect, skepticism is always highly advanta- geous; for skepticism is only the carrying out of erroneous philosophy to the absurdity which it always virtually involved. The skeptic, qua skeptic, cannot himself lay down his premises ; he can only accept them from the dogmatist ; if true, they can afford no foundation for the skeptical inference ; if false, the sooner they are exposed in their real character, the better. Accepting his prin- ciples from the dominant philosophies of Locke and Leibnitz, and deducing with irresistible evidence these principles to their legitimate results, Hume showed, by the extreme absurdity of these results themselves, either that Plii- losophy altogether was a delusion, or that the individual systems which afforded the premises, were erroneous or incomplete. He thus constrained philosophers to the alternative, — either of surrendering philosophy as null, or of ascending to higher principles, in order to reestablish it against the skeptical reduction. The dilemma of Hume constitutes, perhaps, the most memorable crisis in the history of philosophy ; for out of it the whole subsequent Metaphysic of Europe has taken its rise. To Hume we owe the philosophy of Kant, and, therefore, also, in general, the latter philosophy of Germany. Kant explicitly acknowledges that it was by Hume's reductio ad ahsurdum of the previous doctrine of Causality, he was first roused from his dogmatic slumber. He saw the necessity that had arisen, of placing philosophy on a foundation beyond the reach of skepticism, or of surrendering it altogether ; and this It was that led him to those researches Into the conditions of thought, which considered, whether In themselves or in their consequences, whether In what they established or in what they subverted, are, perhaps, the most remarkable in the annals of speculation. To Ilume, in like manner, Ave owe the philosophy of Reld, and, conse- quently, what is now distitictively known in Europe as the Philosophy of the Scottish School. Unable to controvert the reasoning of Berkeley, as founded on the philos- ophy of Descartes and Locke, Reid had quietly resigned himself to Idealism, and he confesses that he would never have been led to question the legitimacy of the common doctrine of Perception, Involving though It did the negation of an external world, had Hume not startled him into hesitation and iiujuiry, by showing that the same reasoning which disproved the Existence of Matter, dis- proved, when fairly carried out, also the Substantiality of Mind. Such was the origla of the philosophy founded by Reid, — illustrated and adorned by Stewart APPENDIX. 648 and it is to this philosophy, and to the writings of these two illustrious thinkers, that Scotland is mainly indebted for the distinguished reputation whieh she at present enjoys, in every country where the study of the Mind has not, as in England, been neglected for the study of Matter. The Philosophy of Reid is at once our pride and our reproach. At home, mistaken and undervalued ; abroad, understood and honored. The assertion may be startling, yet is literally true, that the doctrines of the Scottish School have been nowhere less fairly apj)reciated than in Scotland itself To explain how they have been misinterpreted, and, conse(|uently neglected, in the coun- try of their l)irtli, is more than I can now attempt; but as I believe an eijual ignorance prevails in regard to the high favor accorded to these speculations by those nations who an; now in advance, as the most enlightened cultivatoi's of philosophy, I shall endeavor, as brielly as possible, to show that it may be for our credit not rashly to disparage what other countries view as our chief national claim to scientific celebrity. In illustration of this, I shall only allude to the account in which our Scottish Philosophy is held in Germany and in France. There is a strong general analogy between the philosophies of Reid and Kant ; and Kant, I may observe by the way, was a Scotsman by proximate descent. Both originate in a recoil against the skepticism of Hume ; both are equally opposed to the Sensualism of Locke ; both vindicate with e(pial zeal the moral dignity of man ; and both attempt to mete out and to define the legitimate sphere of our intellectual activity. There are however, important differences between the doctrines, as might be anticipated from the very different characters of the men ; and while Kant surpassed Reid in systematic power and comprehension, Reid excelled Kant in the caution and security of his procedure. There is, however, one point of difference in which it is now acknowledged, evt-n by the representatives of the Kantian philosophy, that Kant was wrong, i allude to the doctrine of Perception, — the doctrine which constitutes the very corner- stone of the philosophy of Reid. Though both philosophies were, in tlieir origin, reactions against the skt'pticism of Hume, this reaction was not equally dett-rminecl in eacii by the same obnoxious conclusion. For, as it was prima- rily to reconnect J^tfect and Cause that Kant was roused to speculation, so it was primarily to regain the worlds of INIind and Matter, that Reid was awak- ened to activity. Accordingly Kant, adniittinir, witliout (|n('stion. the previous doctrine of philosopiici-s, that the niin Scotland, the fundamental position of Reid's philosophy has been misunder stood, his criticism of the ideal theory treated as a blunder, and his peculiar doctrine of perception represented as essentially the same with that of the phi losophers whom he assailed ; in Germany, anle assertion, that a man in sucjj I .*ee lecf. NX. p. 271. — Er>. •'' Dt (imrfi ad Litrram, 1. vii. cnp». wii. ii (.><»H' tiatisciiili, P/i;/.'i. [Sec roiincmaii. f. \ p 241] 1. viii. Oprrit, t. ii. pj). 400, 401. AvcrriK-,'. * !>' yntiim H.iniuii.^. c .\iii. ji. 204. wlit Dutritct DfUnirtionum. Arift. Optra, t. \ |« .M:itt1i;ii. — Kl>. 340. Veiiico, 15()0.] 82 650 APPENDIX. circumstances naturally scratches the back of his head. The one indication is at least as good as the other. Amonsr niodern physiologists, Willis was the first who attempted a new attri' l)ution of mental functions to different parts of the nervous system. He placed Perception and Sensation in the corpus callosum, Imagination and Appetite in the corpora striata, Memory in the cerebral convolutions. Involuntary Motion in the cerebellum, etc.; and to Willis is to be traced the determination, so con- spicuous among subserpicnt physiologists, of attributing different mental uses to different parts of the brain. It would be bootless to state to you the man)- various and contradictory con- jectures in regard to these uses. To psychologists they are, with one excep- tion, all comparatively uninteresting, as, were they even ascertained to be something better than conjectures, still, as the physical condition is in all of them occult, it could not be applied as an instrument of psychological discov- ery. The exception which I make is, the celebrated doctrine of Gall. If true, that doctrine would not only afford us a new instrument, but would in a great measure supersede the old. In fact, the psychology of consciousness, and the psychology founded on (jail's organology, are mere foolishness to each other. They arrive at conclusions the most contradictory ; insomuch that the estal)lishment of the one necessarily supposes the subversion of the other. In these circumstances, no one interested in the philosophy of man can be indifferent to an inquiry into the truth or falsehood of the new doctrine. This doctrine cannot be passed over with contempt. It is maintained not only by too many, but by too able advocates, to be summarily rejected. That its results are repugnant to those previously admitted, is but a sorry reason for not in(juiring into their foundation. This doctrine professes to have discovered new ])rinciples, and to arrive at new conclusions ; and the truth or falsehood of these cannot, therefore, be estimated merely by their conformity or discon- formity with those old results which the new professedly refute. To do so would be mere prejudice, — a mere assumption of the point at issue. At the same time, this doctrine professes to be founded on sensible facts. Sensible facts must be shown to be false, not by reasoning, but by experiment ; for, as old Fernelius has well expressed it, — " Insipientis arrogantise est argumenta- tionis necessitatem sensuum testimonio anteponere." To oppose such a doc- trine in such a manner is not to refute, but to recommend ; and yet, unfortu- nately, this lias been tlie usual mode in which the organology of Gall and his followers has been assailed. Such an opinion must be taken on its own ground. We must join issue with it upon the facts and inferences it embraces. If the facts are true, and if the inferences necessarily follow, the opinion must be -admitted ; the sooner, therefore, that we candidly inquire into these the better, for it is only thus that we shall be enabled to form a correct estimate of the evidence on which such a doctrine rests. With these views I many years ago undertook an investigation of the funda- mental facts on which the phrenological doctrine, as it is unfortunately called, is established. By a fundamental fact I mean a fact, by the truth of which the hypothesis could be proved, and, consequently, by the falsehood of which it could be disproved. Now, what are such facts ? The one condition of such a fact is, that it should be general. The phrenological theory is, that there is a APPENDIX. 651 correspondence between the volume of certain parts of the brain, and the intensity of certain qualities of mind and character ; — the former they call development, the latter manifestation. Now, individual ca.scs of alleged con- formity of development and manifestation could prove little in favor of the doctrine, as individual cases of alleged disconformity could jjrove little against it; because, 1^, The phrenologists had no standard by which the proj)Ortion of cerebral development could be measured by themselves or their opponents , 2°, Because the mental manifestation was vague and indeterminate; 3', Be- cause they had introduced, as subsidiary hypotheses, the occult qualities of temperament and activity, so that, in individual cases, any given head could always be explained in harmony with any given character. Individual cases were thus ambiguous; thev were worthless either to establish or to refute the theory. But where the phrenologist had proclaimed a general fact, by that fact their doctrine could be tried. For example, when they asserted as the most illustrioTis discovery of Gall, and as the surest inference of their doctrine, that the cerebellum is the organ of the sexual appetite, and established this inference as the basis of certain general facts which, as conmion to the whole animal kingdom, could easily be made matter of precise experiment ; — by these facts the truth of their doctrine could be brought to the test, and this on ground the most favorable for them. For the general probability of their doc- trine was thus estimated by the truth of its best-established element. But, oi» the other hand, if such general facts were found false, their disproval atTorded the most satisfactory refutation of the whole system. For the phrenologists themselves readily admit, that their theory is exploded, if their doctrine of the function of the cerebellum is disproved. Because, therefore, an examination of the general facts of Phrenology was at once decisive and comparati\ely easy, I determined, on this ground, to try the truth of the opinion. I shall state to you very generally a few results of the investigation, of which I may, without boasting, alhrm that no iiKjuiry of the kind was ever conducted with greater care or more scrupulous accuracy. I shall commence with the phrenological dor-trine of the cerebellum, on which you will see the propriety of dwelling as briefly as I can. I may men- lion that the extent of my experiments on this organ is wholly unconnected with Phrenologv. My attention wa.s, indeed, originally turned to the relation of the after-brain to the other parts of the nervous system, when testing the accuracy of the phrenological doctrine on this point; but that end was very soon accomplished, and it was certain discoveries which I made in reganl to the laws of (levelo|)ment and the function of this organ, and the desire ot' establishing these iiy an iiidnction from as many of the species as possible of the animal kingdom, that led me ii\to a more extensive inijuiry than ha-* hith- erto been instituted by an\ professional physiologist. When I publish its results, they will disprove ;i liundred times over all the |>hrenological assertions ill regard to the cerebellnin: hut this will be only an accidental circiimstaixe. and of comparatively littU' iini)ortaiici>. I may add. that my tables extend to above one thousand brains of aiiove fifty sj)ecies of animals, accurately weighed by a delicate balance; and you will leuiark that the phrenolotn'sts have not a single observation of any accuracy to which tlu'V van appeal. The only evi- dence in the shape of precise experiment on which they can found, is a table C52 APPENDIX. of Serres, Avho is no i)hrenolorior to the organ of Com- bativeness ; while the region of the temporal bone, above and before the open- 83 658 APPENDIX. ing of the ear, in other words, its present situation, is marked as terra adhuc incognita. No circurastanoe, however, is more remarkable than the sut-cessive changes of shape in the organs. Nothing can be more opposite than the present form of these as compared with those which the great work of Gall exhibits. In Gall's plates they are round or oval ; in the modern casts and plates they are of every variety of angular configuration ; and I have been told that almost every new edition of these varies from the preceding. We may, thereforct well apply to the phrenologist and his organology the line of Horace ' — " Diruit, aedificat, mutat qiiadrata rotundis. " ■With this modification, that we must read in the latter part, mutat rotunda quadralis. So much for Phrenology, — for the doctrine which would substitute the cal- lipers for consciousness in the philosophy of man ; and the result of my obser-. vation — the result at which I would wish you also to arrive — I cannot bette* express than in the language of the Roman poet ■ — "Materia ne quare modum, sed perspice vires Quas ratio, non pondus habet ■' In what I have said in opposition to the phrenological doctrine, I should, however, regret if it could be ever supposed that I entertain any feelings of disrespect for those who are converted to this opinion. On the contrary, I am prompt to acknowledge that the sect comprises a large proportion of individu- als of great talent; and I am happy to count among these some of my most valued and respected friends. To the question, how comes it that so many able individuals can be believers in a groundless opinion ? — I answer, that the opinion is not wholly groundless ; it contains much of truth, — of old' truth it must be allowed ; but it is assuredly no disparagement to any one that he should not refuse to admit facts so strenuously asserted, and which, if true, so necessarily infer the whole conclusions of the system. But as to the mere circumstance of numbers, that is of comparatively little weight, — argumentwn pessimi turha, — and the phrenological doctrines are of such a nature that they are secure of finding ready converts among the many. There have been also, and there are now, opinions far more universally prevalent than the one in question, which nevertheless we do not consider on that account to be unde- niable. (6.) An Accottnt of Experiments on the Weight aid Relative Proportions of the Brain, CERtBELLUM, and Tuber Annulare in Man and Animals, under the various circumstances of Age, Sex, Country, etc. (Published in Dr. Monro's Anatomy of the Brain, p. 4 — 8. Edinburgh, 1831. — Ed.) The following, among other conclusions, are founded on an induction drawn fiY>m above sixty human brains, from nearly three hundred human skulls, of 1 Epist. L. i. ep. i. 100. — Ed. 2 Manilius, iv. 929. — Ed. APPENDIX. 659 determined sex, — the capacity of which, by a method I devised, was taken in sand, and the original weight of the brain thus recovered, — and from more than seven hundred brains of different animals. 1. In man, the adult male Encephalos is heavier than the female : the former nearly averaging, in the Scot's head, 3 lb. 8 oz. troy, the latter, 3 lb. 4 oz. ; the difference, 4 oz. In males of this country, about one brain in seven is found above 4 lb. troy ; in females, hardly one in one hundred. 2. In man, the Encephalos reaches its full size about seven years of age. This was never before proved. It is commonly believed that the brain and the bol()f/>/. Tiedemann, however, remarks, that his own observations coincide with mine (p. 10); as is, indeed, evident from his Table (p. 11) '' Of the cranial capacity from birth to adolescence," though, unfortunately, in that table, but in that alone, he has not discriminated the sex. Dr. Morton's conclusion as to the comparative size of the Negro brain, is contrary to Tiedcmann's larger, and to my smaller, induction, which concur in proving, that the Negro encephalos is not less than the European, and greatly larger than the Hindoo, the Ceylonese, and sundry other Asiatic brains. But the vice, already noticed, of Dr. Morton's induction, renders it, however extensive, of no cogency in the question. Dr. Morton's method of measuring the capacity of the cranium, is, certainly, no "invention" of his friend Mr. Phillips, being, in either form, only a clumsy and unsatisfactory modification of mine. Tiedemann's millet-seed afibrds, like- wise, only an inaccurate a{)proximation to the truth ; for seeds, as found by me, vary in weight according to the drought and moisture of the atmosphere, and are otherwise ill adapted to recover the size of the brain in the smaller ani- mals. The physiologists who have latterly followed the method of filling the < ranium, to ascertain the amount of the cranial contents, have adopted, not without perversion, one-half of my process, and altogether omitted the other. After rejecting mustard .seed, which I first thought of employing, and tor the reason specified, I found that pure silicious sand was the best mean of accom- plishing the ])urpose, from its suitable j)onderosity, incompressibility, eijuality of weight in all weathers, and tenuity. Tiedemann (p. 21) says, that he did not employ sand, " because, by its greater specific gravity, it might easily burst the cranial liones at the sutures." He would, by trial, have found that this objection is futile. The thinnest skull of the youngest infant can resist the pressure of sand, were it many times greater than it is ; even Morton's lead shot ])roved harmless in this respect. Rut. while nothing could answer the pur- pose better than sand, still this afforded only one, and that an inadequate. mean towards an end. Another was recjuisite. By weighing the brain of a young and healthy convict, who was hanged, and afterwanls weighing the sand which his prepared cranium contained. I determined the proportion of the sp**- cific gravity of cerebral substance (which in all ages and animals is nearly equal) to the specific gravity of the sand which was cnq)loycd. I thu» 662 APPENDIX. obtained a formula by which to recover the origiital weight of the encephalod in all the crania which were filled ; and liereby brought brains weighed and skulls gauged into a universal relation. On the contrary, the comparisons of Tiedemann and Morton, as they stand, are limited to their own Tables. I have once and again tested the accuracy of this process, by experiment, in the lower animals, and have thus perfect confidence in the certainty of its result, be the problem to recover the weight of the encephalos from the cranium of a spar- row, or from the cranium of an elephant. I may conclude by saying, that I have now established, apart from the proof by averages, that the human encephalos doea not increase after the age of seven, at highest. This has been done, by measuring the heads of the same young persons from infancy to adolescence and maturity ; for the slight increase in the aze of the head, after seven (or six) is exhausted by the development to be allowed in the bones, muscles, integuments and hair. (The following is an unpublished Memorandum in reference to pre- ceding. — Ed.) March 23, 1850. Found that the specific weight of the sand I had employed for measuring the capacity of crania, was that the sand filling 32 cubic inches, weighed 12,160 grains. Found at the same time that the millet-seed occupying the same number of cubic inches, weighed 5665 grains. Thus the proportion of millet-seed to sand, in specific gravity is as 1 : 2.147. One cubic inch thus contains 380 grains sand ; and 177 grains millet-seed. (rf.) Original Researches on the Frontal, Sinuses, with Observations ON THEiK Bearings on the Dogmas of Phrenology. (From The Medical Times, May, 1845, Vol. XII., p. 159; June 7, 1845, Vol. XII., p. 177; August, 1845, Vol. XII., p. 371.— Ed.) Before proceeding to state in detail the various facts and fictions relative to the Frontal Sinus,' it will be proper to premise some necessary information touching the nature and relations of the sinuses themselves. The cruces phrenologorum are two cavities, separated from each other by a perpendicular osseous partition, and formed between the tables of the frontal bone, in consequence of a divergence of these tables from their parallelism, as they descend to join the bones of the nose, and to build the orbits of the eye. 1 It is proper to observe, that tlie notes, of which the following is an abstract, were writ- ten above sixteen years ago, and have not since been added to, or even looked at. They were intended for part of a treatise to be entiled. •' The Firtionx of Fhrftinlngy and the Facts of Nature.'" My researches, however, paxticalarly into the relatiunB of the cere- bellum, and the general growth of the brain, convinced me that the phrenological doctrin* vu wholly unworthy of a serious refutation; and should the detail of my observations on these points be ever published, it will not be done in a polemical form. My notes on the frontal sinuses having, however, been cast in relation to the phrenological hypothesis, I have not thought it necessary to take the labor of altering them, — espeeially m the phrenological hction is, in truth, a comple- ment of all possible errors on the subject of these cavities. A p r E N D I X . ioG'd They are not, however, mere inorganic vacuities, arising from the recession of the bonj' plates ; they constitute a part of the olfactory apparatus ; they arc lined with a membrane, a continuation of the pituitary, and this, copiously sup- plied with blood, secretes a lubricating mucus which is discharged by an aper- ture into the nose. Various theories have been proposed to explain the mode of their formation ; but it is only the fact of their existence, fre(}uency, and degree, with wliich we are at present interested. In the foetus, manifested only in rudiment, they are gradually, but in ditlerent subjects variously developed, until the age of pu- berty; they appear to obtain their ultimate expansion towards the age of twenty-five. They are exclusively occasioned by the elevation of the external table, which determines, in fact, the rise of the nose at the period of adoles- cence, by affording to the nasal bones their formation and support. Sundry hypotheses have likewise been advanced to explaiti their uses, but it will be enough for us, from the universality of their ajipearance, to refutt? the singular fancy of the phrenologists, that these cavities are abnormal varieties, the [)roduct of old age or disease. But though the sinuses are rarely if ever absent, their size in every dimen- sion varies to infinity. Laying aside all rarer enormities, and speaking, of course, only of subjects healthy and in the prime of life, in superficial extent the sinus sometimes reaches hardly above the root of the nose, sometimes it covers nearly the whole forehead, penetrates to the bottom of the orbit, and, turning the external angle of the eyebrow, is terminated only at the junction of the frontal and parietal bones. Now, a sinus is small, or almost null upon one side, — on the other it is, perhaps, unusually large ; while in no dimensif)n are the two cavities, in general strictly correspondent, even although the outer forehead presents the most symmetrical appearance. In depth (or transverse distance between the tables) the sinus is equally inconstant, varying indeter- minably in different heads, from a litie or less to half an inch and more. Now, a sinus gradually disappears by a gradual convergence of its walls ; now these walls, after running nearly parallel, suddenly unite. Now, the depth of the cavity decreases from centre to cin-umference ; now the plates approximate in the middle, and recede farther from each other immediately before they ulti- niately unite. In one cranium, a sinus, collected within itself, is fairly rounded off; in another, it runs into meandering bays, or is subdivided into separate chambers, these varying without end in their relative capacity and extent. In depth, as well as in extent, the capacity of the sinus is thus wholly indetermin- able ; and no one can prediit, from external observation, whether the cavity shall be a lodging scanty for a fly or roomy for a mouse. It is an error of the grossest, that the extent of the sinus is indicated by a ridge, or crest, or blister, in the external bony plate. Such a protuberance has no certain or even probable relation to the extent, depth, or even exi.stence, of any vacuity beneath. Over the largest cavities there is freipiently no bony elevation ; and women, in whose crania these protuberances are in general al>- sent or very small, exhibit the sinuses as universally existent, and not, perhaps, proportionably less extensive than those of men. The external ridge, however prominent, is often merely a sudden outwanl thickening of the bony wall, which sometimes has a small, sometimes no cavity at all, beneath. Ai)art alM 664 APPENDIX. from the vacuitv, though over the region of the sinus, no quarter of the cranium jediment being often considerably greater than the whole diameter even of the organs themselves. The fact, however, is, that those organs are commonly, if not always, developed only in the bone, and may be cut out of the cranium, even in an impuberal skull destitute of the sinus, without trenching on the confines of the brain itself; At the external angle of the eyebrow at the organ of slumber, the bone, exclusive of any sinus, is sometimes found to exceed an inch in thick- ness- How then have the phrenologists attempted to obviate the objection of the sinus ? The first organs which Gall excogitated, he placed in the region of the sinus ; and it is manifest he was then in happy unacquaintance with everything con- nected with that obnoxious cavity. In ignorance, however. Gall was totally eclipsed by Spurzheim ; who. while he seems even for a time unaware of its 1 Every one wlio has ever examined the laminae a ae invicem marime distant/'' — (Df sinus knows that wliat Schulze has observed Cav. Cranii, Acta Phys. Med. Acad. Cas., i. p. is true — "in illo angiilo qui ad nares est. 508.) cavitatis fandus est, et hoc in loco fere ossium APPENDIX. 667 existence as a normal octurrence, has multiplied the number and diminished the size of the organs which the sinus regularly covers. By both the founders, their organology was published before they had discovered tiie formidable nature of the impediment, and then it was too late to retract. They have attempted, indeed, to elude the objection ; but the manner in which they have rioundered on from blunder to blunder, — blunders not more; inconsistent with each other, than contrary to the fact, — shows that they have never dared Ut open their eyes on the reality, or never dan;d to acknowledge their conviction of its efTect. The series of fictions in relation to the frontal sinus, is, out of Phrenology, in truth, imparalleled in the history of science. These fictions are substituted for facts the simplest and most palpable in natun* ; they arc substi- tuted for facts contradicted by none, and proclaimed by every anatomical authority ; and they are substituted for facts which, as determining the compe- tency of phrenological proof, ought not to have beer* rejected without a critical refutation by the founders of that theory themselves. But while it seemed possible for the {jhrenologi-sts to find only truth, they have yet continued to find nothing but error — error always at the greatest possible distance from the truth. But if they were thus so curiously wrong in matters so easy, notorious, and fumlamental, how far may we not presume them to have gone astray where they were not, as it were, preserved from wandering? The fictions by which phrenologists would obviate the objection of the fron- tal sinus, may, with the opposing facts, be divided into four classes; — as they relate 1°, to its natu7-e &nd effect: 2°, to its indication; 3°, to its /re^wenc// .• and 4°, to its size. I. — Nature and Effect of the Sinus. Fad. — The frontal sinus only exists in consequence of the recession of the two cranial tables from their ])arallelism ; and as this recession is inappreciable, <'onsefiuently, no indication is afforded by the external plate of the eminence or depression of the brain, in contact with the internal. To this fact. Gall opposed the following Fiction. — The I'rontal sinus interposes no impediment to the observation of cerebral development; for as the walls of this cavity arc exactly parallel, the effect of the brain upon the inner table must consequently be exprejised by the outer. Anthorilicx for the Fiction. — This fiction was orininallv advanced bv CJall, in his Leetui-es, and, though never formally retraete Ob$. Rar. Cfnt. Post, pars prior, ob«. 4. Cats., vol i. obs. 28S 1" -■«"«(. Dfsrr . stt|. VA, vA. 1824. 5 Expos. Anat. tr. des Oss. Sees., sec. 3t). 1' Elon. of Anat. i. p. 134. 670 APPENDIX. forty-five skulls, that while three only were without the sinus, in two of them (as observed by Schulze, Winslow and Buddeus) the cavity had merelv been filled up by tlic deposition of a sponiry bone. Of tho former opinion, which holds that the sinus is always present, I need only quote, instar otnnium, the authority of Blumenbach,^ whose illustrious reputation is in a peculiar manner associated with the anatomy of the human cranium, and who even celebrated his professional inauguration by a disserta- tion, in some respects the most elaborate we possess, on the Frontal Sinuses themselves. This anatomist cannot be persuaded, even on the observation of Highinorc, Albinus, Haller, and tfie first Monro, that normal cases ever occur of so improbable a defect; "for," he says, " independently of the diseases after- wards to be considered, I can with difficulty admit, that healthy individuals are ever wholly destitute of the frontal sinus ; on the contrary, I am convinced that these distinguished men have not applied the greatest diligence and research." In this opinion, as observed by the present Dr. Monro,^ Blumenbach is sup- ported by the concurrence of Berlin, Portal, Sommering, Caldani, etc. Nor does the fiction obtain any countenance i'rom the authors whom Blumenbach opposes. I have consulted them, and find that they are all of that class of anatomists who regard the absence of the sinus, though a possible, as a rare and memorable phenomenon. Highmore^ founds his assertion on the single case of a female. Albinus,* on his own observation, and on that of other anatomists, declares that " the sinuses are very rarely absent." The first Monro,^ speaking of the infinite variety in size and figure, notices as a remark- able occurrence that he had " even seen cases in which they were absolutely wanting." And Haller" is only able to establish the exception on the case of a solitary cranium. My own experience is soon stated. Having examined above three hundred crania for the purpose of determining this point, I have been unable to find a smgle skull wholly destitute of a sinus. In crania, which were said to be examples of their absence, I found that the sinus still existed. In some, indeed, I found it only on one side, and in many not ascending to the point of the glabellar region, through which crania are generally cut round. The only instances of its total deficiency are, I believe, those abnormal cases in which, as observed by anatomists, the original cavity has been subsequently occupied by a pumicose deposit. Of this deposit the only examples I met with occurred \n males. Authorities for Fiction II. — This fiction also is in terms maintained by Gall.'" Neither he nor any other phrenologist has adduced any proof of this paradox; nor is there, I believe, to be found a single authority for its support ; while its refutation is involved in the refutation already given to fiction I. Nannoni,"* indeed, says — "the opinion of Fallopius that the frontal sinuses are often wanting in women, is refuted by observation ; " but Fallopius says nothing oi the sort. It is also a curious circumstance, that th« great majority of cases in « 1 De Sin. Front., p. 5. 2 Elem., vol. i. p 133. 3 Disq. Anal, lib Hi. c. 4. * Annot. Acad., lib. i. c. 11, et Tab. Oee. J Osteol. par Sue, p. 54. 6 Elem Phys. v. p. 138. 7 As above. t> Traltato dt Anatomia. 1788. p. 66- APPENDIX. 671 which worms, etc., have been found in the sinus, have occurred in females. This is noticed by Salzmann and Ilonold.' My own observations, extending, as I have remarked, to above three hun- dred crania, confirm the doctrine of all anatomists, that in either sex, the absence of this cavity is a rare and abnormal phsenomenon. if not an erroneous assertion. I may notice, by the way, the opinion of some anatonilsts,^ that the sinuses are smaller in women than in men, seems to be the result of too hasty an induction ; and I am inclined to think, from all I have observed, that pro- portionally to the less size of the female cranium, they will be found equally extensive with the male. Authorities for Fiction III. — This fiction was maintained by Spurzheim while in this country, from one of whose publications^ it is extracted. It is, perhaps, one of the highest flights of phrenological fancy. Nor has it failed of exciting emulation in the sect. "While a man," says Sir George Mackenzie,* " is in the prime of life, and healthy, and manifests the faculties of the frontal organs, such a cavity i><;>7/ .se/rA;m exists "(!) ***** " We have examined a gueat MANY skulls, and we have not yet seen onk having the sinus, that could be proved to have belonged to a person in the vigor of life and mind." (!!) Did Sir George ever see any skull which belonged to any " person in the vigor of life and mind" without a sinus? Did he ever see any adult skull of any per- son whatever in which such a cavity was not to be found ? Proof of the Fact, in opposition to this Fiction. — This fiction deserves no special answer. It is already more than sufficiently refuted under the first. It is true, indeed, the doctrine that the frontal sinuses wax larae in old a"e is stated in many anatomical works. I find it as far back as those of Vidus Vidius and Fallopius, but I find no ground for such a statement in nature. This I assert on a comparative examination of some thirty aged skulls. In fact, about the smallest frontal sinus that I ever saw, was in the head of a woman who was accidentally killed in her hundred and first year. (See also the appended Table.) I take this indeed for one of the instances in which anatomical authors have blindly copied each other; so that what originates in a blunder or a rash induction, ends in having, to appearance, almost catholic authority in its favor. A curious instance of this secjuacity occurs to me. The common fowl has an encephalos, in proportion to its body, about as one to five hundred ; that is, it has a brain less, by relation to its body, than almost any other bin] or beast. Pozzi (Puetos), in a small table which he published, pave the proportion of the encephalos of the cock to its boily. by a blunder, at about half its amount; that is, as one to two hundred and fitly. Ilaller, copying Pozzi's ob.servation, dropt the cipher, and reconls in his Uible, the brain of the common fowl as bearing a proportion to the b ) of Gall, etc , p. V9. - Instar omnium, v. Scimmeriiig, De F. C. H. * lUuntrattons^ p. 228. i eec 62. 672 APPENDIX ter to the whole stream of scientific authority. The doctrine of the larger th* sinus the older the skull, stands, I believe, on no better footing. Indeed, the general opinion, that the brain contracts in the decline of life, is, to say the least of it, very iloubtful, as I may take another opportunity of showing. As to the effect of chronic insanity in amplifying the sinuses, I am a skeptic ; for I have seen no such effect in the crania of madmen which I have inspected. At all events, admitting the phrenological fancy, it could have no influence on the question, for the statistics of insanity show, that there could not be above one cranium in four hundred where madness could have exerted any effect. IV. — Extent of the Sinus. Fact. — While the sinus is always regularly present, it, however, varies appreciably in its extent. For whilst, on the average, it affects six or seven organs, it is, however, impossible to determine whether it be confined to one or extended to some seventeen of these. This fact is counter to three phrenological fictions : Fiction I. — The frontal sinus is a small cavity. Fiction II. — The frontal sinus, when present, affects only the organ of locality. Fiction III. — When the sinus does exist, it only extends an obstacle over two organs (Size and Lower Individuality), or at most, partially affects a third rLo(!ality). Authorities for Fiction I. — Mr. Combe ' maintains this fiction, that the frontal sinus " is a small cavity." Authorities for Fiction II. — Gall^ contemplates and speaks of the sinus as only affecting locality ; and the same may be said of Spurzheim, in his earlier English works.^ Authorities for Fiction HI. — This fiction is that into which Spurzheim modi- fied his previous paradoxes, when, in 1825, he published his "Phrenology."* Mr. Combe allows that the sinus, in ordinary cases, extends over locality, as well as over size and lower individuality. All these fictions are, however, sufficiently disproved at once by the follow- ing Proof of the Fact. — The phrenologists term the sinus (when they allow it being) " a small cavity." Compare this with the description given by impar- tial anatomists of these caverns. Yidus Vidius' characterizes them by "spatium 7ion parvum ; " Banhinus'' styles them " cavitates insignes ; " Spigelius,^ " caver- ns© satis amplce;" Laurentlus,** "sinus amplissimi;" Bartholinus.^ "cavitates amplissimce:" Petit,^" " ^ran(/s cavites irregulieres ; " Sabatier,'^ "cavitea large* 1 System, p. 32. -' As quoted above. •" Phys. Syst., p. 236, and Exam, of Obj, p. 79. * P. 115. 5 Anat. lib. ii. e. 2. 6 Anat lib iii c 5. " De Fabr. lib. ii c 5 8 Hist. Anat- lib ii. c. 9 9 Anat. lib. iv., c. 6. 10 Palfyn An. ch. i p. 82. 11 Anat. APPENDIX. 673 •et profondex ;" Sommering/ "cava ampla;" Monro, primus,^ ^^ great cavi- ties;" and his grandson,'' " large cavities." The phrenologists further assert, that in ordinary cases the frontal sinus covers only two petty organs and a half; that is, extends only a few lines beyond the root of the nose. But what teach the anatomists ? " The frontal sinuses," says Portal,* " are much more extensive than is generally believed." " In genera!" says Professor Waltlier,^ " the sinuses ascend in height nearly to the middle of the frontal hone." Patissier" observes, that "their extent Taries to infinity, is sometimes stretched upwards to the frontal protuberances, and to the sides, as far as the external orbitar apophyses, as is seen in many crania in the cabinet of the Paris Faculty of Medicine." Bichat'' delivers the same doctrine nearly in the same words; which, contradicted by none, is main- tained by Albinus,* Ilaller,^ Buddeus,"^ Monro T^nwM.s-," and /er/iM.s-,'^ Blumen- bach,''' Sommcring,^* Fife,'^ Cloquet,^*' Velpeau,"^ — and, in a word, by every osteologist; for all represent these cavities as endless in their varieties, and extending not unfri' ever, shallower than the right. On the left side I have said the cavity termin, dted over the external angle of the orbit. From this place, a bony wall ran towards the middle of the crista Galli, and thus separated the sinus into a pos- terior and an anterior cavity. The posterior extended so far towards the tem- ples, that it reached the place where the frontal and sincipetal bones and the processes of the sphenoidal meet. It covered the whole arch of the orbit, so that all was here seen hollow," etc. After describing sundry appearances which the sinuses exhibited in another skull, he observes : " It was my fortune to see and to obtain possession of one cranium in which of neither of the frontal nor the sphenoidal cavities was there any vestige whatsoever. In this specimen the bones in which these vacuities are situated were thicker than usual, and more cavernous ; " an observation, as we ha^e seen, made by other anatomists. However subversive of the phre- nological statement, it will soon be seen that Schulze has understated the usual extent of the impediment. Dr. Monro,^ after mentioning that there *' were forty-five crania of adults jn the Anatomical Museum, cut with a view to exhibit the difierent sizes and forms of the frontal sinuses," says : " I measured the breadth or distance across the forehead ; the height or distance upwards from the transverse suture, where it divides the frontal bones and bones of the nose ; and also the depth of the frontal sinuses; In nine different skulls in which these sinuses were large." Omitting the table, it is sufficient to say, that in these crania the average Is as follows : — Breadth, within a trifle of three inches ; heif/ht, one inch and five- tenths ; depth, above one inch. Here the depth seems not merely the distance between the external and internal tables, but the horizontal distance from the glabella to the posterior wall of the sinus. These nine crania thus yield an average, little larger than an indifferent induction ; and though the sinuses are stated to have been large, the skulls appear to have been selected by Dr. Monro, not so much in consequence of that circumstance, as because they were so cut as to afford the means of measuring the cavity in Its three dimensions. By the kindness of Dr. Monro and Mr. Mackenzie, I was permitted to exam- ine all the crania in the public anatomical museum, and in the private collection of the Professor ; many were, for the first time, laid open for my inspection. I was thus enabled to institute an impartial induction. A random measure- ment of above thirty perfect crania (laying aside three skulls of old persons, in which the cavity of the sinus was almost entirely occupied by a pumicose deposit) gave the following average result* breadth, two inches four-tenths; 1 EUmrnts, i., p. 134. ~ APPENDIX. 67o height, one inch and nearly five-tenths ; depth (taken hke Dr. Monro), rather more than eight-tentlis of an inch. What in this inchiction was proliahly acci- dental, tlic sinuses of the female crania exhibited an average, in all the three dimensions, almost absolutely equal to that of the male. The relative size was eonse(juently greater. Before the sinuses of the fifty crania of Dr. Spurzheim's collection (of which I am immediately to speak) were, with the sanction of Professor Jame- son, laid open upon one side, I had measured their three dimensions by the probe. This certainly could not ascertain their full extent, as, among other impediments, the probe is arrested by the septa, which so freijuently subdivide each sinus into lesser chambers; but the labor was not to be undergone a sec- ond time, especially as the proportional e.xtcnt of these cavities is by relation to the phrenological organs articulately exhibited in the table. As it was, the average obtained by the probe is as follows: — In the thirty-six male crania (one could not be measured by the probe), the breadth was two inches and nearly four-tenths ; the height, one inch and nearly three-tenths ; the depth, rather more than one inch. In the twelve female crania (here, also, one could not be measured by the probe), the breadth was one inch, and rather more than nine-tenths ; the height, nearly one inch ; the depth, within a trifle of nine-tenths. I should notice that in all these measurements, the thickness of the external plate is included in the depth. So true is the observation of Portal, that the '■\frontal sinuses are much more extensive than is generally believed." The collection of fifty crania, of which the average size of the frontal sinuses has been given above, and of which a detailed table of the impediment inter- posed by these cavities to phrenological observation now follows, was sent by M. Royer, of the Jardin des Plantes (probably by mistake) to the Royal Mu- seum of Natural History in Edinburgh; the skulls, taken from the catacombs of Paris, having, under Dr. Spurzheim'n inspection, been selected to illustrate the development of the various phrenological organs, which development is diligently marked on the several crania. Thus, though I have it in my power to afford a greatly more extensive table, the table of these fifty crania is, for the present purpose, sufficient. For — 1", They constitute a complete and definite collection ; 2°, A collection authoritative in all points against the phrenologists ; 3°, One to which it can be objecti'd by none, that it affords only a selected or partial induction in a ([uestion touching the frontal sinus; 4°, It is a j'ollection j)atent to the examination of" the whole world ; 5°, In all the .skulls a sinus has on one side been laid open to its lull extent ; the capacity of botii is thus easily ascertained; and, at the same time with the size of the cavity, the thickness and salience of the external frontal table remains apparent. • Table exhibiting the variable extent and unappreciable impediment, in a phrenological relation, of the Frontal Sinuses; in a collection of fifty crania, selected, aud their development marked, under the direction of Dr. Spurzheira; 676 APPENDIX. e J B ., X .£ -S rs o *3 s- 1 . Extent of the Sinuses, as entirely or nearly covering (t), or as more or less affecting (•), ( ■Cc s s « . s. the pretended ph renological organs, according to the late and latest numeration (1). ^ii s ^ 1 l| •t3 1| 1 2 1 L. w. - '3 3 s t2 o 20 21 22 19 24 19 23 25 29 26 29 27 30 31 28 32 ; ^«> OS e3 £2 ^ 3 = n. cT L. W. 3 3 03 bo ziiii iiiy XX7 izii RTli zxx szri zziz zzziji zizi xxzii i xxviii XXXIT XXIT xuU xz ii S5 z < — 1 viii C' t t t t 2 xii "rt t t t * 3 xiii S * 4 xvi tSa t t t t t t t t t t t » • • 5 xvvi a t t t t t t « • * xxxiv o t t t t t t t * r xxxvi ^ t t t t t * t « t 8 xxxvii t t t t • t • * xli t t + t • 111 XXXV t t t t t t t t t t t t • • ■• •? to i . 11 xxxix 3fe5-3 O St: Ml t t t t • * • )•; ii >. g= t t t t t t « If, iv t t t t • *? / 14 V t t t t t »9 )5 : vi t t t t « •? ](i vii t t t t ir IX t t t t » 18 X t t t t t * 1 19 xiy t t t t » • 2fi xvii •o t t t t t , 2 xxi ill t t t t a 1 22 xxiii ? t t « t * • 23 XXV t t t t t * • \ 24 xxvii t t + t t t • • ■ 25 xxviii jg t t « t • 1 26 xxix t t t t « t • 1 1 27 XXX 1 * 1 1 28 xlii t t t t t • * *? 1 29 xliii t t t t t • • 1 30 xliv t t t t t • 1 i 31 xlv • t t t t • 32 xlvii t t t t t « « 33 xlviii t t t t t t t • t • • • 34 xxii t ♦ t t « i 1 35 xlix » * 36 X xxiii t t • t 37 1. 6 Old. t t t ' • 1 1 ^ 38 39 XV xxzii "3 s 1 Young. ^ t t t t t t t t t t t • • . 1 to i . 40 xxxviii t t t * 1 41 xi Male? >. « = t t t ■a 42 xviii BO t t t t 43 xix 1 1 t t » 44 xxiv — t t 45 xxxi 5 -3 t t t t t « • • 46 xl 1 t t 47 xlvi s t t t t • t • • • ' ! 48 i * t » 49 XX _2 t t t • "5 s * JO iii Old. t t t . I O) The organs denoted by these numbers: — ix. 7, Constructivenes*? xx. 32. Mirthfulness or Wit; xxii. 19 (2), Individuality ln, through sense, of external things. These might operate severally or togcthi-r. The first is, that such a hypothesis is necessary to render possible the percep- tion of distant objects. It was taken as granted that certain material realities, (as a sun, stars, etc.), not immediately present to sense, were cognized in a per- ceptive act. These realities could not be known immediately, or in themselves, unless known as they existed; ami they existed only iis they existed in their place in space. If, therefore, the perceptive mind did not sally out to them, (which, with the exception of one or two theorists, was scouted as an impos- .sible hypothesis), an immediate perception behooved to be abandonetl. and the sensitive cosnifion we have of them must be vicarious ; that is. not of the real- ities themselves, as present to our organs, and presented to apprehension, but of something different from the realities eternally existing, through which, how- ever, they are mediately represented. Various theories in n-ganl to tlie nature of this mediate or vicarious object may be entertaineil ; but these may be (jver- 678 APPENDIX. passed. This first consideration alone was principally effectual among naateri- alists : on them the second had no influence. A second consideration was the opposite and apparently inconsistent nature of the object and subject of cognition ; for here the reality to be known is ma- terial, whereas the mind knowing is immaterial; while it was long generally believed, that what is known nuist be of an analogous essence (the same or similar) to what knows. In consequence of this persuasion, it was deemed impossible that the immaterial, unextended mind could apprehend in itself, as extended, a material reality. To exi)lain the fact of sensitive perception, it was therefore supposed requisite to attenuate — to immaterialize the immediate object of perception, by dividing the object known from the reality existing. Perception thus became a vicarious or mediate cognition, in which the cor- poreal was said to be represented by the incorporeal. Perception — Positive Result. 1. We perceive only through the senses. 2. The senses are corporeal instruments, — parts of our bodily organism. 3. We are, therefore, percipient only through, or by means of, the body. In other words, material and external things are to us only not as zero, inasmuch as they are apprehended by the mind In their relation with the material organ which it animates, and with which It is united. 4. An external existence, and an organ of sense, as both material, can stand in relation only according to the laws of matter. According to these laws, things related, — connected, must act and be acted on; but a thing can act only where It Is. Therefore the thing perceived, and the percipient organ, must meet In place, — must be contiguous. The consequence of this doctrine is a complete simplification of the theory of perception, and a return to the most ancient speculation on the point. All sensible cognition is, in a certain acceptation, reduced to Touch, and this is the very conclusion maintained by the venerable authoritv of Dcmocrltus. According to this doctrine, it is erroneous, in the first place, to affirm that we are percipient of distant, etc., objects. It Is erroneous, in the second place, to say that we perceive external things in themselves. In the signification that we perceive them as existing in their own nature, and not in relation to the living organ. The real, the total, the only object perceived has, as a relative, two phases. It may be described either as the idiopathic affection of the sense (t. e. the sense in relation to an external reality), or as the quality of a thing actually determining such or such an affection of the sentient organ (/. e. an external reality in correlation to the sense). A corollary of the same doctrine is, that what have been denominated the Primary Qualities of body, are only perceived through the Secondary; in fact. Perception Proper cannot be realized except through Sensation Proper. But synchronous. The object of perception is an affection, not of the mind as apart from body; AFPKNDIX. 6Tlt « not of the body as apart from mind, but of the composite formed bv union of the two; tliat is, of the, animated or living organism (Aristotle). In the process of perception there is required both an act of the conscious anind and a passion of the affected body ; the one without the other is null. Galen has, therefore, well said, ■' Sensitive perception is not a mere passive or iffi'Ctive change, but the discrimination of an affective change." ' (Aristotle, — judgment.) Perception suj)poses Consciousness, and Consciousness supposes Memory and Judgment; for, abstract Consciousness, and there is no Perception; ab- stract Memory, or Judgment, and Consciousness is abolished. (Ilobbes, — Memory; Aristotle, — Judgment of Sense.) Memory, Recollection; for change is necessary to Consciousness, and change is only to be apprehended through the faculty of Remembrance. Hobbes has, therefore, truly said of Perception, — •• Sentire semper idem, et non sentire, ad idem recident." -' But there could be no discriminative apprehension, supposing always memory with- out an act whereby difference was afhrmed, or sameness denied ; that is, without an act of Judgment. Aristotle ' is, therefore, right hi making Pei- ception a Judgment. IV. LAWS OF THOUGHT. — (See p. .527.) (Written in connection with j^roposed Memoiu ok Mk. Stewart. On Desk, May 18.56; written Autumn, IS.").!. — Ed.^ The doctrine of Contradiction, or of ContradictOT-ies (afi«/w» -rijs &trri(pdaea>s), that Affirmation or Negation is a necessity of thought, whilst Affirmation and Negation are incompatible, is developed into three sides or phases, each of which implies both the others, — phases which may obtain, and actually have received, severally, the name of Lan\ Principle, or Axiovi. Neglecting the historical order in which these were scientifically named and articulately developed, they are : 1°, The Law, Principle, or Axiom, of Lhiitili/, which, in regard to the same thing, immediately or directly enjoins the affirmation of it with itself, and medi- ately or indirectly proliiliits its negation : (.1 is A.) 2°, The Law, etc., of Contrailictiim (properly Non-cantratiirtiou), which, in regard to contradictories, explicitly ••njoining their reciprocal negation, implic- itly prohibits their reciprocal allirmation : (.1 is uol Xol-A.) In other wonls. contradictories are thought as existences incompatible at the same time, — as ai once mutually exclusive. 3°. The Law, etc., of Exclwlfd MiiMle or TJiiffl, which declaivs tliat. wliilst contradictories are only two, everything, if explicitly thought, must be thought as of these either the one or the other: (.1 is ritlur li or Xol-B.) In differenl terms: — Affirmation and negation of the same thing, in the same n-spect. have no conceivable medium; whilst anything actually may, and virtually must, he 1 Se€ Ilfii/'s Kmks, p. 878. — Ev. 2 See Ibid. — Ed. t See IbU — Kd. 680 APPENDIX. either affirmed or denied of anything. In other words : — Every predicate is true or false of every subject; or, contradictories are thought as incompossible, but, at the same time, the one or the other as n(!cessary. The argument from Contradiction is omnipotent within its sphere, but that sphere is narrow. It has tlie tbllowing Hmitations : 1°, It is negative, not positive; it may refute, but it is incompetent to estab- lish. It may show what is not, but never of itself, what is. It is exclusively Logical or Formal, not Metaphysical or real ; it proceeds on a necessity of thought, but never issues in an Ontology or knowledge of existence. 2°, It is dependent ; to act it presupposes a counter-proposition to act from. 3°, It is explicative, not ampliative; it analyzes what is given, but does not originate information, or add anything, through itself, to our stock of knowledge. 4^, But, what is its principal defect, it is partial, not thorough-going. It leaves many of the most important problems of our knowledge out of its deter- mination ; and is, therefore, all too narrow in its application as a universal criterion or instrument of judgment. For were we left, in our reasonings, to a dependence on the principle of Contradiction, we should be unable compe- tently to attempt any argument with regard to some of tthe most interesting and important questions. For there are many problems in the philosophy of mind where the solution necessarily lies between what are, to us, the one or the other of two counter, and, therefore, incompatible alternatives, neither of which are we able to conceive as possible, but of which, by the very conditions of thought, we are compelled to acknowledge that the one or the other cannot but be ; and it is as supplying this deficiency, that what has been called the argument from Common Sense becomes principally useful. The principle of Contradiction, or rather of Non-contradiction, appeal's in two forms, and each of these has a different application. In the first place (what may be called the Lor/ical application), it declares that, of Contradictories, two only are possible in thought ; and that of these alternatives the one or the other, exclusively, is thought as necessarily true. This phasis of the law is unilateral ; for it is with a consciousness or cognition that the one contradictory is necessarily true, and the other contradictory nec- essarily false. This one logical phasis of the law is well known, and has been fully developed. In the second place (what may be called the Psychological application), while it necessarily declares that, -of Contradictories, both cannot, but one must, be, still bilaterally admits that we may be unable positively to think the possibility of either alternative. This, the psychological phasis of the law, is comparatively unknown, and has been generally neglected. Thus, Exixtctwe we cannot but think, — cannot but attribute in thought ; nevertheless we can actually conceive neither of these contradictory alternatives, — the absolute commencement, the infinite non-commencement, of being. As it is with Exist- ence, so is it with Time. We cannot think time beginning; we cannot think time not beginning. So also with Space. We are unable to conceive an exist- ence out of space ; yet we are equally unable to compass the notion of illimit able or infinite space. Our capacity of thought is thus peremptorily proved APPENDIX. 681 incompetent to what we necessarily think aVtout; for, whilst what we think about must be thouprht to Exist, — to exist in Time, — to exist in Space, — we are unable to realize the counter-notions of Existence commencinir or not com- mencing, whether in Time or in Space. And thus, whilst Existence, Time, and Space, are thp indispensable conditions, tonus, or categories of actual thought, still are we unable to conceive either of the counter-alternatives, in one or other of which we cannot but admit that they exist. These and such like impotencies of positive thought have, however, as I have stated, been strangely overlooked. V. THE CONDITIONED. (a.) Kant's Analysis of Judgments. — (See page 532.) (Fragment from Early Papers, probably before 1836. — Ed.) Kant analyzed jydgn)ents (a priori) into analytic or identical [or explicatively and synthetical , or [ampliative, non-identical^- Great fame from this. But he omitted a third kind, — those that the mind is compelled to form by a law of its nature, but which can neither be reduced to analytic judgments, because they cannot be subordinated to the law of Contradiction, nor to synthetical, because they do not seem to spring from a positive power of mind, but only arise from the inability of the mind to conceive the contrary. In Analytic judgments — (principle utiontradictioii) — we conceive the one alternative as necessary, and the other as impossible. In Synthetic judgments, we conceive the affirmative as necessary, but not [its negation as self-contra- dictory]. Would it not be better to make the synthetic of two kinds — a positive and negative ? Had Kant tried whether his synthetic judgments n prl. ) •'• !^ee Kant in Knig"» Mrlnp/iysik. p. 198 ■J See Bonae S|R'i. Pltysica, [pars, i, tract, iii. 4isp. i. dub 2. p 13!^ — Kd.] 664: APPENDIX. V. Some carry up man into the Deity (as Schelling). Others bring down the Deity to man ; in whose philosophy the latter is the highest manifestation of the former, — man apex of Deity. I*. Some think Absolute can be known as an object of knowledge, — a no- tion of absolute competent; others that to know the absolute we must ha th» absolute (Schelling, Plotinus?). * Some [hold] that unconditioned is to be believed, not known ; ethers that it can be known. ^ {d.) Sir W. Hamilton to Mr. Henry Calderwood. CoRDALE, 26th Sept., 1854. My Dear Sir : I received a few days ago your Philosophy of the Injinitey and beg leave to return you my best thanks, both for the present of the book itself, and for the courteous manner in which my opinions are therein contro- verted. The ingenuity with which your views are maintained, does great credit to your metaphysical ability; and, however I may differ from them, it gives me great satisfaction to recognize the independence of thought by which they are distinguished, and to acknowledge the candid spirit in which you have written. At. the same time, I regret that my doctrines (briefly as they are promul- gated on this abstract subject) have been, now again, so much mistaken, more especially in their theological relations. In fact, it s^cems to me, that your admissions would, if adequately developed, result in establishing tlie very opinions which T maintain, and which you so earnestly set yourself to- controvert. In general, I do not think that you have taken sufiiciently into account the following circumstances : 1°, That the Infinite which I contemplate is considered only as in thouf/ht ; the Infinite beyond thought being, it may be, an object of belief, but not of knowledge. This consideration obviates many of your objections. 2°, That the sphere of our belief is much more extensive than the spherp of our knowledge; and, therefore, when I deny that the Infinite can by us be known, I am far from denying that by us it is, nmst, and ought to be, believed. This I have indeed anxiously evinced, both by reasoning and authority. When, therefore, you maintain, that in denying to man any positive cognizance of the Infinite, I virtually extenuate his belief in the infinitude of Deity, I must hold you to be wholly wrong, in respect both of my opinion, and of the theo- logical dogma itself Assuredly, I maintain that an infinite God cannot be by us (positively) com- prehended. But the Scriptures, and all theologians worthy of the name, assert the same. Some indeed of the latter, and, among them, some of the most illus- trious Fathers, go the length of asserting, that " an understood God Is no (rod at all," and that, " if we maintain God to be as we can think that he is, we blas- pheme." Hence the assertion of Augustin ;•" Deum potius ignorantia (juani scientia attingi." I Cf. Discussions, p. 12 et seq. — Ed. APPENDIX. '685 S', That there is a fundamental (lifrereiice between The Infinite (rh-Zv koI Jlap,) and a relation to which we may apply the term infinite. Thus, Time and Space must be excluded from the supposed notion of The Infinite ; for Tlie Infinite, if postively thought it could be, must be thought as under neither Spaei' nor Time. But 1 would remark specially on some essential points of vour doctrine ; and these I shall take up witliout order, as they present themselves to mj recollection. You maintain (pa.,e think the Father as the Rel- ative of the Son as Correlative, we can also *hlnk the Son as Relative of the Father as Correlative. Rut, In point of fact. I'^ere are here always, more or less obtrusive, t\70 different, though not independent, relations : for the relation, APPENDIX. 689 in which the Father is relative and the Son correlative, is that of Paternity; while the relation, in which the Son is relative and the Father correlative, is that of Filiation ; relations, however, which mutually imply each other. Thjis, also. Cause and Effect may be either Relative or Correlative. But where Cause is made the llelative, the relation is properly styled Carnation ; whereas we ought to denominate it Ejf'ectuatlnn, when the Effect becomes the relative term. To speak of the relation of Knowledge ; we have here Subject and Ol> ject, either of which we may consider as the Relative or as the Correlative. But, in rigid accuracy, under Knowledge, we ought to distinguish two recijjrocal relations, — the relation of knowiuy, and the relation of hehxj knovit. In the former, the Subject (that known as knowiuf/') is the Relative, the Object (that knoirn rw bein(/ knofcn) is the Correlative ; in the latter, the terms are just reversed. V. The Relatives (the things relative and correlative), as relative, always <;oexist in nature (a/xa rfj (pi'ff(i), and coexist in thought {d/xa rfj yvwati). To speak now only of tiie latter simultaneity; — we cannot conceive, we cannot know, we cannot defme the one relative, without, pro tanto, conceiving, know- ing, defining also the other. Relative and Correlative are each thought through the otiier ; so that in enouncing Relativity as a condition of the thinkable, in other words, that thought is only of the Relative ; this is tanta- mount to saying that we think one thing only as we think two things mutually and at once ; which again is e(juivalent to a declaration that the Absolute (the non-Relative) is for us incogitable, and even incognizable. In these conditions of Relativity, all philosophers are at one ; so far there Is among them no difference or dispute. Note. — No part of philosophy has been more fully and more accurately developed, or rather no part of philosophy is more determinately certain than the .doctrine of Relation; insomuch that in this, so far as we are concerned, there is no discrepancy of opinion among philosophers. The only variation among them is nicrcly verbal : sonic giving a more or less extensive meaning to the words employed in the nomenclature. For whilst all agree in calling by the generic name of relative both what are specially denominated the Rel- ative and the Correlative; some limit the expression Term Qenninus), to the latter, and others the expression, Subject (subjectuni) to the former; whilst the greater number of recent ])hilosophers (and these I follow) apply these expres- sions indilTereutlv to both Relative and Correlative. VI. CAUSATION. — LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. (See p. 558.) (o.) Causation. /Written in connection witli j)r<>|)o-;ccl Mi;m.) My doctrine of Causality is accused of neglecting the phenomenon of rhantic, and of ignoring the attribute of power. This objection precisely reverses the •87 690 APPENDIX. fact. Causation is by me proclaimed to be identical with change, — change of power into act ("omnia mutantur ") ; change, however, only of appearance, — we being unable to realize in thought either existence (substance) apart from phaenomena, or existence absolutely commencing, or absolutely terminating. And specially as to power ; power is the property of an existent something (for it is thought only as the essential attribute of what is able so or so to exist) ; power is, consequently, the correlative of existence, and a necessary supposi- tion, in this theory, of causation. Here the cause, or rather the complement of causes, is nothing hut powers capable of producing the effect; and the effect is only that now existing actually, which previously existed potentially, or in the causes. We must, in truth, define : — a cause, the power of effectuating a change ; and an effect, a change actually caused. Let us make the experiment. And, first, of Causation at its highest extremity : Try to think creation. Now, all that we can here do is to think the existence of a creative power, — a Fiat; which creation (unextended or mental, extended or material) must be thought by us as the evolution, the incomprehensible evolution, by the exertion or putting forth of God's attribute of productive power, into energy. This Di- vine power must always be supposed as preexistent. Creation excludes the commencement of being: for it implies creative God as prior; and the exist- ence of God is the negation of nonentity.^ We cannot, indeed, compass the thought of what has no commencement ; we cannot, therefore, positively con- ceive (what, however, we firmly believe) the eternity of a Self-existent, — of God : but still less can we think, or tolerate the supposition, of something springing out of nothing, — of an absolute commencement of being. Again, to think Causation at its lowest extremity: As it is with Creation, so is it with Annihilation. The thought of both supposes a Deity and Divine power ; for as the one is only the creative power of God exerted or put forth into act, so the other is only the withdrawal of that exerted energy into po\ver. We are able to think no complete annihilation, — no absolute ending of exist- ence (" omnia mutantur, nihil interit ") ; as we cannot think a creation from nothing, in the sense of an origination of being without a previously existing Creator, — a prior creative power. Causation is, therefore, necessarily v:ifhin existence ; for we cannot think of a change either from non-existence to exist- ence, or from existence to non-existence. The thought of power, therefbit;, always precedes that of creation, and follows that of annihilation ; and as the thought of power always involves the thought of existence, therefore, in so far as the thoughts of creation and annihilation go, the necessity of thinking a cause for these changes exemplifies the facts, — that change is only from one form of existence to another, and that causation is simply our inability to think an absolute commencement or an absolute termination of being. The sum of being (actual and potential) now extant in the mental and material worlds, together with that in their Creator, and the sum of being (actual and potential) in the Creator alone, before and after these worlds existed, is necessarily 1 I have seen an attempt at the correction stultitied by self-contradiction ; or existence is of my theory of creation, in which the Deity created by a non-existent God, — an alterna- is made to originate or create existence. That tive, if deliberately held, at once abaurd and is, either existence is created by an existent impious. Gqd, on which alternative the definition is APPENDIX. 691 thought as precisely the same. Take the instance of a neutral salt. This is an effiect, the product of various causes, — and all are necessarily powers. We have here, 1°. An acid involving its power (active or passive) of combining with the alkali ; 2°, An alkali, involving its power (active or passive) of com- bining with the acid ; 3° (Since, as the chemical brocard has it, " corpora non agunt nisi soluta"), a fluid, say water, with its power of dissolving and holding in solution the acid and alkali ; 4°, a translative power, say the human hand, capable of bringing the acid, the alkali, and the water, into correlation, or within the sphere of mutual aflinitj'. These (and they might be subdivided) are all causes of the ofTect ; for, abstract any one, and the salt is not produced. It wants a coefficient cause, and the concurrence of every cause is requisite for an effect^ But all the causes or coefficient powers being brought into reciprocal rela- tion, the salt is the result; for an effiiict is nothing but the actual union of its constituent entities, — concauses or coefficient powers. In thought, causes and effects are thus, pro tanto, tautological : an effect always preexisted potentially in its causes; and causes always continue actually to e.xist in their effects. There is a change of form, but we are compelled to think an identity in tne elements of existence : "Omnia mutantur; nihil interit." And we might add, — "Nihil incipit;" for a creative power must jdways be conceived as preexistent. Mutation, Causation, Effectuation, are only the same thought in different respects; they may, therefore, be regarded as virtually terms convertible. Every change is an effect; every effect is a change. An effect is in truth just a change of power into act ; every effect being an actualization of the poten- tial. But what is now considered as the cause may at another time be viewed as the effect; and vice versa. Thus, we can extract the acid or the alkali, as effect, out of the salt, as principal concause ; and the s(|uare which, as effect, is made up of two triangles in conjunction, may be viewed as cause wiien cut into these figures. In opposite views, Addition .and Multiplication, Subtraction and Division, may be regarded as causes, or as effects. Power is an attribute or property of existence, btit not coextensive with it : for we may suppose (negatively think) things to exist which have no capacity of change, no capacity of appearing. Creation is the existing sul)sc(pH'ntly in act of what previously existed in j)Ower; annihilation, on the coutrary, is the subsequent existence in power of what previously existed in act. Except tlie first and last causal agencies (and tlicsc, as Divine ojicrations, are by us incomprehensible), every other is conceived also as an effect ; there- fore, every event is, in dillcrcnt relations, a power and an act. Considered as I See above, k-ct. iii. j: 42. — Ea 692 APPENDIX. a cause, it is a power, — a power to cooperate an effect. Considered as an effect, it is an act, — an act cooperated by causes. Chanire (cause and effect) must be ivithin existence ; it must be merely of phtenomenal existence. Since change can be for us only as it appears to us, — only as it is known by us ; and we cannot know, we cannot even think a change either from non-existence to existence, or from existence to non-exist- ence. The change must be from substance to substance ; but substances, apar\ from phenomena, are (positively) inconceivable, as phaenomena are (positive^ ly) inconceivable apart from substances. For thought requires as its conditioi\ the correlatives both of au appearing and of something that appears. And here I must observe that we are unable to think the Divine Attributei as in themselves they are, we cannot think God without impiety, unless we also implicity confess our impotence to think Him worthily ; and if we should assert that God is as we think or can affirm Him to be, we actually blaspheme. For the Deity is adequately inconceivable, is adequately ineffable ; since human thought and human language are equally incompetent to His Infinities. (6.) The Question of LiBteRxr and Necessity as Viewed by the Scottish School. (Written in connection with proposed Memoir of Mr. Stewart. On Desk, May 1856; written Autumn 1855. — Ed.) The Scottish School of Philosophy has much merit in regard to the problem of the Morality of human actions ; but its success in the polemic which it has waged in this respect, consists rather in having intrenched the position main- tained behind the common sense or natural convictions of mankind, than in having rendered the problem and the thesis adopted intelligible to the philoso- pher. This, indeed, could not be accomplished. It would, therefore, have been better to show articulately that Liberty and Necessity are both incompre- hensible, as both beyond the limits of legitimate thought ; but that though the Free-agency of Man cannot be speculatively proved, so neither can it be spec- ulatively disproved ; while we may claim for it as a fad of real actuality thou EX. Abel, case of drenming mentioned by, 458. Abercrombie (Dr John), referred to on somuambulism, 223; on cases of mental la- tency, 23H. Abercromiiy, 513. Absoll'te. distinctions of mode of reaching it, 683-4, 684-8 S'-k Kegulativt- Faculty. Abstraction, se.e Attention and Elaborative Faculty. Abstractivk knowledge, see Knowledge. Academical lionors. principles wliicb slionid regulate, 635 et seq. Accident, what, 106. Act, what, 124. See Energy. Active, its defects as a philosopliical term, 79, 128. Activity, always conjoined with passivity in creation, 216 See Consciousness. Actual, distinctions of from potential, 124. See Existence. Addison, quoted to the effect that the mental faculties air not independent existences, 268. iEscHTLUS, quoted, 244 JCcJiDlus, 292; on Touch, .376. AciiirPA (('(Miielius), 53 Ajcr^ffjs, iinibiguous, 562 See Feeling. Akenside, nuoted on Fear. (507 Alheutl's Magnus, 176, 292; on Touch, 376- Al.CIIINDUS, 2!il. ALc.M-eo.N, -352. .». LKNSifl, or Alcsius, Alex., 176, 292. 387. Al.E.VANDlUA, .schtiol of, 75. Alfa i: A HI, 213. ^L<;.\/,KL, tii>l exjilicilly nniiiitained the hy- pothesis of Assistance ur ()cca.sionul Causes, 210. 542; his surname, 542 Set Causality. Alison, Uev. A , noticed on A.SMiria'ion. 612. Ammomuh Hermia', referred to on b ; see I'hilosophy , relations of analysis aud synthesis. 69, 70: nature of scientific, 70 eC seq.; three rules of peycho logical, 282, critical, its sphere, 4), 266, 428; (pioted on IJeminiscence, 442; quoted on Imagination, 455; on the same, 457; see Kejiresentative Faculty; 459-6C, i?f ibid. Andre, I'ire, 442; bis treatise Sur U Beau. a)4. Annihilation, as conceived by us, 5-52 Aphrodisiensi.s, Alex. 81. 176; quoted on mental powei-s, 271, 21tl ; <|U0ted on Aristo- tle's doctrine of species, 2!t3; on Touch, 376; on contrariety and simultaneity, 4.>l Apoi.linaris. on 'foucli, 376. Appetency, term object ioinible n.- eouimon designation both of will and desin-. 12S. AqriNAS. '.), 43: iniiintained that the mind can attend to only a single object at once, 176; his doctrine of mental powers, 2?2, 292, 316 AKBfTHNOT, quoted, 115. Auchimede.-j. 180. Aikjentinas, 292 Aristotle, 9, 14, 26. 32; quoted on detinition of plilloso))hy. !1'>, 37; r»':'ern'nhi- fe.', 39; .<" F.inpirical. 4<»; quoted on the cud of |)hilosophy. 42. 45, 46, iH, 49, 50, 53; ipioled on \Vond<>r as ii cau.s<> uf philit!H>pliy 55, 5!>, iVS, 66. 75. 79, 83; .«'» Art; made th« consideration of the soul pari of the pliil- ', act of the same faculty as reflec- tion, 164; not a faculty different from con- sciousness, 164 et seg.; what, 16.'>; as a gen- eral ph;enomenon of consciousne.ss. 165: whether we can attend to more than a sin- gle object at once, 165 ft sft/.. I'Set sf/. . this question canvassed in the middle ages. 176 possible without an act of tree will, 171: of three degrees or kinds, 172; nature and im- portance of, ib. ; the que.stion how many objects can the mind attend to at once con- sidered. I'd et stq.; how answered by Bon- net, Tucker, Destutt-Tracy. Degerando. and by the author, 177; value of attention con- sidered in its highest degree as an act of will, 177; instances of the power of, 179 et serj. ; Malebranche (j noted on place and im- portance of, 181 ec seq ; .'itewart commended on. 182. See Conservative Faculty. Attribute, what, 106. Augustin, St., his analysis of pain. 49, 81, 98 j his employment of consciiis, and cnnscieniia, 1-36; inclined todoctiine of Pla.stic Medium, 213; his doctrine of matter. (6. ; quoted on. our ignorance of the substance of mind and body, 214: on continual energy of in- tellect, 218; ()U0ted on mental powers. 270, 292, quoted on the doctrine that the . (he Sn^iis Viij^us and .SVh- iiix Fi.riis of the (lernum philosophers, 377: controverted opinion that extension is an object of .Sight, 3S0. ;382 et ser/. ; on laws of Association, 430; i|noled on Conceptualism, 4S1, see Klaborative Piieulty; 493, see Lan- guage; 534, et sn/., >ef (iiusality. BituwNK, SirTlionnis, i|Uolcd lS,see Mind, 513. Buiic-KKii, 51 Buchanan ((ieorge), (|Uoted, 280. lU-in).EU8, 180. BiiKKiKll, IV-re, ri;,'hl in regard to degrees of evidence in eonscioiisne.«s. 191 ; distin- guished Peice t .11, IVoni .'-Sensation. 3^1-1. Bl'KFON. 17!t. 376 BruATKl.l.lis, (inbrie!, i|UOt('d nn Platonic ductiine of vision, 29(J. BuuoKKPDVCK, 83, 507. BuKKE, ijuoted on value of reflective studies, 10. Bdtler (Bishop), referred to on our mental identity, 260. BvKON, quoted, 82. C^.SALPiNUS, Andreas, 501. C.*.SAR1NU8, Virgiuius, quoted on Painful Atl'ections, 606. fA.JETAN. 176, 272,317. C'ALUEi:wooL), Henry, letter of author to, 684—688. Cami»anei.la, quoted on mental powers, 271, 496. see I.,aiiguage. (A.Mi'BELL, I'rincipal, 92; a uomiualist, 476. (a.mi'Bell ( fhoma-s), quoted, 35. Cai'.\city, origin and meaning of, 123; ap- [ propriately applied to natural capabilities, 124; distinguished from faculty, 269. Capreoi-us, 176, 272, 20.J. Cardaillac. referred to on doctrine of mental latency, '235, 251; quoted on ditfi- culty of p.sychological study, 2<)3, 265;. quoted, 444 et seq. See Reproductive Fac- ulty. (.'ARUAN, 180; on Touch, 376; on pleasure, 589, See Feelings. Cauleton, I'liomas Compt., 683. Carneaues. 180. Caiu'entkr (Dr.), referred to on 8omnambu> lism, 223. Cartesians, the, division of philosophy by, 84; fully evolved the hypothesis of assist- ance or occasional causes, '209; made con- sciousness the essence of thought, 251. Cari-S (Fred. Aug.), '2.72, 429, 570, see Feel- '. ings. Casaubon, Isaac, (juotijil on memory of Joseph Scaliger, 425. Capmann, Otto, his u.-ie of the term pst/dtol' i ogij, 95. : Cacbalitt, of second cau.scs at least two liecessary to the production of every effect, 408, .554; the lirst Cause cannot be by us api)reliended, but must be believed in,4;i; the law of, evolved IVtiin the principle of the conditioned, 532 et seq. ; problem of. an>/.: not neee.-sary to the notion of, that we should know tlu- imitii-ular causes of the parliev.- lar effect, .>14 : Itmwns uccciui.t otihe phr.- nomenon of, b^A. 535; Profc-isor \Vils.)a quoted on Brown's doctrine of, b9i; fun. ilamen!al I'.etect in Brown's theory, M!'; v'.i f.- ilicHiion «»r opinioim on the nature aud origin e con- MS 698 INDEX. gidcred in detail, 539 et seq., I. Objectivo- Obj«ctive,539; refuted on two grounds, 540; tliut we liave no perception of cause and cllect in tlie external world maintained by Hume, 541) and before him by many phi- losophers, 541 ; among whom Algazel prob- ably the first, ib. : by the JIussulinan Doc- tors, 542; the Schoolmen, ib. : Malel)ranche, ib.; II. Objcctivo-.Subjective, maintained by Locke, 542; M. de Biran, ib.; shown to be untenable, 543; 111. Objective — Induction •or Generalization, 544; IV. Subjective — Association, .544; V. A Special I'rinciple of Intelligence, 545; VI. Expectation of the Constancy of Nature, 545; fifth opinion criticised, 546; VII. The Principle of Non- Contradiction, 546; VIII. The Law of the Conditioned, 547; judgment of Causality, how deduced from this law, 548 et seq. ; ex- istence conditioned in time affords the prin- ciple of, 548,549; see also 551 et seq. : that the causal judgment is elicited only by objects in uniform succession is erroneous, 555; the author's doctrine of, to be preferred, 1°, from its simplicity, 555; 2°, averting skepti- cism, 556; 8°, avoiding the alternatives of fatalism or inconsistency, 556, 557; advan- tages of the author's doctrine of, further shown, 557; defence by autlior of his doc- trine of, 689. Cause, sfe Causality. Celsus, 39 Cerebellum, its function as alleged by phre- nologists, 651; its true function as ascer- tained by the author, 653. Chalcidius, 291. Cha>-et, 513. Chauleton, 513. Chap.uox, 62. Chance, games of, 617, see Feelings. Chauvin, 43, 474. Cheselden, 380, see Sight. CHE.STEltFlEl.u (Lord), 179. Chevy Chase, ballad of. quoted, 564. CiCEP.o, 21; on tlie assumption of the term philosnpktj, SS; on definition of philosophy, 35; referred to on the same, 37, 81, 114; use of the term Conscius,lS(i: on continual en- ergy of intellect, 218, 3.39, 349, 353, 414, 636, see Conservative Faculty; quoted in illus- tration of the law of contiguity, 434, 460, 513. Classification, see Elaborative Faculty. Claubkrg, 64; his division of philosophy 119. Clerc, Dan. le. 39. Clerc, John le, held Plastic Medium, 208, 214; (juoted on perception, 309; distin- guished Perception from Sensation, 334. Cle.mess Alexandkinus, referred to on definition of philosophy. .35; quoted, 46. CoGJilTlON, one grand division of the pha;- nomena of mind, 86, .^ee Knowledge; thr use of the term vindicated, 277. Coleridge, case of mental latency recordecj by, 239. Color, see Sight. CoJiPUEHENSlON of notious, see Elaborative Faculty. Co.Mi>;.EX Notions, see Elaborative Faculty. Common Sense, its various meanings, 512; authorities for use of as equivalent to Nouy, 513. Common Sense, see Vital Sense. (;oMMON Sensory, 512. Combe (George), quoted on difference of de- velopment of phrenological organs, 665. Comparison, see Elaborative Faculty. Conative, used by Cudworth, 129. See Co- nation. Conation, one grand division of the pha>- nomena of mind, 56; best term to denote the phenomena both of Will and Desire, 129; determined by the Feelings, 568; essen- tial peculiarities of, 571 et seq. Conception, used by Reid and Stewart as synonymous with Imagination, 147; mean- ing and right application of the terra, 452. See Representative faculty. CoNCEPTUALis.M, See Elaborativft Faculty, Condorcet, 497, Conditioned, the, 549. See Regulative Fac- ulty. CONDILLAC, referred to on definition of phi- losophy, 35; quoted on love of unity as a source of error; 50, 51, 71. 99, 163, 235, 271; on extension as object of sight, 379, 468, 493, see Language. CONIMBRICENSES, 137, 272, 291, 414, 493, see Language. Conscientia, Conscius, their various mean- ings, 136 et si-q. See Consciousness. Conscious, see Subject and Consciousness. Consciousness, what, 110, 133; the one essen- tial element of the mental pha;nomena, 126: affords three grand classes of phienomena — those of Knowledge, Feeling, and Cona- tion, 127 et seq. ; their nomenclature, 127-8; this threefold distribution of the phafuom- ena of, first made by Kant, 129; objection to the classification obviated, 129,564; the phenomena of, not possible independently of each other, 130,411; order of the three grand classes of the phienomena of, 1.30-1; no special account of, by Reid or Stewart, 131 ; cannot be defined, 132 et seq. ; admits of philosophical analysis, 132; what kind of act the word is employed to denote, and what the act involves, 133 et seq. ; conscious- ness and knowledge involve each other, 1.33, tlie.se, how distinguished, 1.34; history of the t*nn, i;i5; first regularly used by Des- cartes in its modern sense, 136; a transla- tion o( con.tcientia, ib.; early senses ofcntisriiis r X D E X . 699 and conseientta, ib. ; as used by Au°;ustin, ib , as used by Quiiitilian, Cicero, TertuUian, and other of the Latin I'atliers, ih.; how ex- pressed in Latin, French, Italian, and Ger- man, ib ; no term for, in Oreelt until the dccliue of philosophy, ib.; terms tanta- mount to, adopted by the later Platon- i.-ts and Aristotelians, l.'JS; the most gen- eral characteristic of, i;^; sjx'cial condi- tions oi^ ib ; those generally admitted, ib. etseq.; implies, 1. actual knowledge, (6. ,• 2. immediate knowledge, ih. ; 3. contrast, 140, 141- 4. judgment. 5li2; 5 memory. 141; »I)eeial conditions of, not generally admit- ted. 143 et ^e(j. ; coextensive with our knowledge, 143 et scg.; a special faculty according to Keid and .Stewart. 144 ft seq. ; ]{eid"s limitation of the sphere of, unten- able, 146 et stq. ; no cousciousne. ily|iotlii-t- ioal l);ialism or (dsmothetic Idealism, and Slonism or Unitarinnism. 20'>, Monisin. its «uhdiviHions, 2f).>-6, second general fact ■>!', — the Activitv and Tasslvitv of mind. 2lil el seq. ; we are active in so far as we are con- scious, 217; Are we always consciously ac- tive? 217 et seq.; this (juestion is conlined to the phicnomena of sleep and somnam- bulism, ib. ; not identical with the question. — Have we always a memory of our con- sciousness ? ib. : opinions of philosophers on the former question, 218 et seq.; dealt with by philosophers rather by hypothesiu than by experiment, 222; conclusions from experiments made by the author, ib ; Locke's objection, that consciousness and the recollection of consciousness are con- vertible, di,sj)roved by somnambniisro, i6., and by the tact that dreaming is possible without memory, 223; that the mind re- mains con.scious during slee|> established by exi)erieuee, 224; results of the authors per- sonal exijerience, — that the mind is never wholly inactive, and thiit we are never wholly uncon.scious of its activity, 224-6; .loufTroy quoted in supfiorf of the author's doctrine on this point, and of sundry otlier conclusions, 226 et seq : cases adduced in support of aflirmative of ({uestion. that we are always consciously active, 232-4 ►( .«»7 . Is the mind ever unconsciously modified .' 2&'jelseq., this (lue.-tion not mooted in this country, 2;J5; how decided in ocii»- tion of Ideas. 244 '/ fq . 254 ii "7 . ill. t»ll Acquired Dexterities and Habits, 247 f' .«"?•. 2()5 rr Stq.: history of the doctrine of un- conscious mental modifications, 2riO '/ seq : lA>ibnit/. the first to proclaim the doctrine. 2r>2; authors refern^l to on doctrine of la- tency. 2.M -2: consciousness and nn niory in IIh' ilirect ratio o( each other, 256; tlirec principal fact* 'o be noticeil in connection with the gei'.eial phsmomena of. 258 '» seq.. 1. .'4, 284; 6. The act of reHection comparatively delicieut in pleasure, 2fJ5; II Facilities, 266 CONSERVATivii Faculty, what, 274. 2S3; its relation to the faculties ot Actiui^itioii, Re- production, and Uepreseutation, 411; why tlie phicnomena of Conservation, IJeproduc- tion, and Uepreseutation have not been dis- tinguished in the analysis of philosophers, 412; ordinary use of the terms Mtrnory and Rerollectiuii, 412 et seq , memory properly tie notes the power of retention, I'o , this use of memory acknowledged by Plato, Aris- totle, St. AujTustin, Julius C'iesar Scaliger, 16. .• Joseph .Scaliger, 413; .Suabedissien, Fries, H Schmid, etc . 414: Memory what, ib. ; the fact of retention admitted, ib': the hypoth- esis of 4»viceiina regarding retention, ib ; retention admits of explanation, ib. ; simil- itudes suggested in illustration of the fac- ulty of retention, by Cicero. Gsissendi, 415; these resemblances of use simply as meta- phors, ib : H. sjchmid quoted on, 415-20; the phsenomenon of retention naturally arises from the self-energy ol mind, 415 : this specially shown, 416 et seg. ; the pi-oblem most difficult of solution is not how a nieii- tal activity endures, hut how it ever van- ishes, (6. ; the difficulty removed by tfie principle of latent modifications, ib. ; for- getfulness, 417; distraction and attention, 418; two observations regarding memory — I. The law of retention extends over all the phenomena of mind alike, 418; 2, the vari- ous attempts to explain memory by phys- iological hypotheses unnecessary, 411); mem- ory greatly dependent on corporeal condi- tions, 16. .• physiological hypotheses of the older psychologists regarding memory, 420; two qualities reciuisite to a good memory, viz., Retention and Repr'xlnction, ib.; re- markafjle case of retention narrated by Muretus, 421-2; case of Giulio (iuidi, 423: two opposite doctrines in regard to the rela lions of memory to tlie higher powers of mind — 1. That a great power of memory is incompatible with a high degree of intelli- gence, 424; this opinion refuted by facts, 425 ; examples of high intelligence and great memory, Joseph .Scaliger, Grotius, Pascal, etc ,425-6; 2. That a high degree ot intelligence supposes great power of mem- ory, 420, CoNSTAXTius a Sarnano, 163. Contemplative Feelings, see Feelings. Contradiction, law of, see Non-Contradic- tion and Thought CONTZEN, 163. Coi'E, reierrcd to on the meaning of ot ffO(po\, oi (TO(j>iaTal, 34. COTTUNIDS, 272. Cocsijv, 44, 90; referred to on Descartes' cos- ito ergo sum, 2.59: vigorously ai-saulted the school of Coiidillac. 277, .307, 465, 542. CowLEV, quoted, OOy. CuAMER, his AnecJota Grerea, referred to, 36, 37. 81. Creation, as conceived by us, 652. Critical Method, what, 403; its sphere, ib. , notice of its employment in philosophy, ib. CRO0SAZ, 308-9 ; distinguished Perception from Sensation, .3-34. .501: quoted on Judg- ment, 504-5. CUDWOHTH, 28 ; held Plastic Medium, 208, 213. .348. CULLEN, 53. Custom, power of, 59 ; skeptical inference from the influence of, 60; testimonies to. 62. CuviER, 179. CYRU.S, his great memory, 426. D'AiLi.Y, 542. D'Alembert, 177; on Touch, 376; 388, see .Sight. Damascenps, referred to, on definition of philosophy, 37, 292. D.\MiRON, referred to on doctrine of mental latency, 2.35, 2.52. Davies, Sir John, quoted, 52. Decomposition. .<«■? Elaborative Faculty. Degeraxdo, 177, 210; quoted on Classifica- tion, 466. 467. Deity, His e.vistence an inference from a special class of etlects, 19; tliese exclusively given in the pliienomena of mind, ib. . what kind of cause constitutes a Deity, ib. : no- tion of God not contained in the notion of a mere First Cause, 19; to the notions of a Piiinary and Oiimii^otent Cause must be added those of lu'elligince and Virtue, ib.: conditions of the proof of the existence of a Deity, twofoUl, 20; proof of these condi- tions dependent on philosophy, 21. Democritus. his theory of Perception. 293, ;i">l ; Ills doctrine of tlie qualities of matter, .342; his doctrine that all the senses are only mo iifications of Touch, 374. Demosthenes, 52. Di;NaiN(;Er.. referred to, on definition of Phi losophy,35, 2.52 Dk R.'VEi, on Touch, 376, 513. Derodon, 474, 479, 485. INDEX, YOl Dkscartes, referred to on definition of j>li)- losopliy, 35, 51, G3, 76; liis division of phi- losopliy, 83; his doctrine of substance. 108; rejiarded faculty of knowledge as the fun- damental jiower of mind, 129 ; the first uniformly to use comcimtia as equivalent to eonsciousness, 136; used refitrtion in its Iisychologiciil application, 164, 179; see At- tention, 200; to him belongs the hypothesis of Occasional Causes, 208, 209, 214; held .that the mind is always conscious, 218; his cos:ito ergo sii7)i, 258, 644, 271; cardinal prin- ciple of his philosophy, 295; twofold use of the term i'lea by, 296; held the more com- plex hypothesis of I{ei)resentative Percep- tion, 300 et seq.; distinf;uished I'erceiition from Sensation, 334; recalled attention to the distinction of Primary and Secondary (Qualities, 342,515, iec Regulative Faculty; on pleasure, 591, see Feelings. Depiuis, see Conation and 'NViH. Destutt-Thacy, 177. Devili.eman'DY, referred to on Aristotle's doctrine of species, 202. De Vkies, 301. Dkxtkuities, accjuired, see Habit. r)lA NOETIC, how to be employed, 574. &»e Logic. DiGiJY (Sir Kenelm), 357. DitxiENES, see Laertius. Discussions on Philosophy, the author's re- f-ired to, 0, 40, 43, 47, etc. DISPOSITION, what, 124. DoGVATiBTS. a sect of physicians, noticed, 39; heaoed by (jalen. ih. DoNELLUs, his great memory, 426. Doubt, the (Irst step t<> philosophy, 57,63; on this philosophers unanimous, t'6. ; testimo- nies to need of, ih. See Philosophy. Dkea.mi.no. possible without memory, 223; :in effect of imaginiition determined bv as- sociation, 457, case of, mentioned by ,\bel, 458. Du Bos, on pleasure, 'M; s>e Feelings. l)rnAM)US, 176; ijuoted on doctrine of spe- cies, 292; his doctrine of spi'cies concurred in by Occam, Ciregory of Pimini, and ISiel, ih.; quoted on distinction of intuitive and abstractive knowledge, ."!36; the great )>robUm in, (.37, Ego, or .Self, meaning of, illustrateil from Plato, 113; Aristotle, Ilicrocles, Cicero, Macrobiiis, Aibullinot. (iatien-.Vrnoult. | quoted in further ilhislration of, 114-15; i the terms F-go and Non-Ego, prelerable j to Self and Not-.Self. 116; how e.xpresscd in (ierm: n and French. i/>.; the Ego and Non-Ego given by consciousness in equal countei-poise and independence, 203; s-e Consciousness. ELAnoiiATivE Faculty, what, 276, 284, 403.- acts included under, ih. ; liow de.-ignated. 276,463; defect in the analysis cf this fac- ulty by philosophers, 464; positions to be established regarding, ib ; comparison a.< determined by objective conditions, 4iVi: as determined by the necessities of the think- ing subject, 466 rt sei/./ Classification, Com- position, or Synthesis shown to be an act of comjjarison, 466, 474; in regard to com- plex or collective notions, 466; in the sim- l)Iest act of cla.ssification. the mind depend- ent on language, 407; Deconqiosition two- fold, 1 in the interest of the Fine Arts. 468; 2. in the interest of Science, ib.; Abstrac- tion, ib. el seq ; abstraction of the senses. ih.; abstraction a natural and necessary processs, 469 ; the work of com|>arison, 470 ; Generalization, ib. et seij. ; idea ab- stract and individual, ib : abstract general notions, what and bow formed, 471; two- fold (luantity in notions, — E.xtension and Comprehension, ih. , their designations, 472, abstraction from, and attention to. are correlative terms, 474 ; Partial or Con- crete Abstraction, ib. ; Modal Abstrac- tion, ih : generalization deijondent on ab- stracti( u. but absliaction does not involve generalization, ib.; Stewart cjuoted to this effect, tb ; Can we form an adequate idea of what is denoted by an abstract general term? 476 ttsei/.; the controversy between Nominalism and Concei)tualism i)rincipally agitated in Britain, i6. ,• t«o o]>inions on. which still divide i)hikisoi)hei-8, /6 ,• Nomi na'ism, what, 477; nniiutaimd by Iloblies Berkeley. Hume, Adam Smith. Campbeji, and .Stewart, ih; doctrine of Nominalism as stated by Berkeley, 478-9, 483; Concep- tualism maintained by Locke, 479 ; by jtrown. 4SO-81 ; lirown's tioctrinc criti- ci/i'd. 4'^1 'I .<"/.,■ liis confutation of Nom- inalism, 4S2; 1 That the .Nominalists allow the apprehension of resemblance. ))roveJ against Brown by reference to Ilobbes, 4.'-^2. Hume, 48,3: Adiim Smith, ib.: ( amplKll. 484; Stewart, ih ; 2. That Brown wrong in holding that tlie lirling (imtioni ol simiii- tude is general, and constitutes the general notion. — proved by a series of axioms 4.84-5; po.ssilile grounds ol Brown's .••uppt'- silion that the feeling of resemblunce .t uniNcrjial, 48i-8; suinnniry of the author's doctrine of ticneralization. 488 ; Brown's doctrine of general notions fiirt her consiti- ered.4'''9; Dix's language originate in goi.- cral ai)i)e;i:iti»rs or b> prop.^r nami-' 4. J rt srq., are Language; ,1u(lgniot)t and lira 702 INDEX soiling shown to be acfs of comparison, 502 et seg. ; these uecessary tVom the hmitation of the human miuil, ib.; act of judgmeut, what, 503; constituents of a judgment,— Subject, Predicate, Copula, 504; expressed in words is a I'ropositiou, ib. ; how the parts of a proposition are to be discriminated, ib.: what judgment involves, 505; Reason- ing, wliat, i(/.: illustrated, ib. ; Deductive and Inductive, ib. ; Deductive, its axiom, 508, its two kinds, ib. , Comprehension and Extension of notions as applied to Reason- ing, ib ; 1. Deductive reasoning in the whole of Comprelier.sion. 507 ; its canon in this who!e, ib. ; 2. Deductive reasoning in the whole of Extension, 508; Inductive reason- ing, its iixiom, 509; of two kinds, ib. ; De- ductive :,nd Inductive illation must be of an absolute necessity, ib ; account of In- duction by logicians erroneous, ib. ; in Ex- tension and Comprehension, the analysis of the one corresponds to the synthesis of the other, 510; confusion among philoso- phers from not having observed this, 511. Eleatic school, 75 EMPiiUOCLES, 290, 387. Empiric or Empirical, its by-meaning in common English, 3^; origin of this mean- ing, ib.; its philosophical meaning, 39; used in contrast with the term necessary, 40, see Knowledge; the Xerxas historical and empir- ical, used as synonymous by Aristotle, ib. Empirics, the, noticed, 38. See Empiric. Empiricus, i^extus, (iuoted on division of philosophy, 80, 81 ; his employment of avvaia^n-iaiz. 1.38. Encephalo.'*. see Brain. Encyclop-euia Dritannica, 109, et alibi. Ends and Meaus di.-ciiminated, 14; adapta- tion of means to ends, how pleasing, 622; ends of two kinds, external and internal, hence the Useful and the Perfect, ib. Energy, what, 124; distinction of first and second, ib ; we may suppose three kinds of mental, — Ineuut, Immanent, and Transe- unt, 565, see Mind. Ennui, 603. See Feelings. Ephesius, Michael, his employment of ffvvai- aiii, iO. ; Plato's theory, — that a state of pleasure is always preceded by a state of i)ain, li., et seq. ; sum of IMato's doctrine of tlie pleasurable, 583 ; the doc- trine of Aristotle proposed to correct and supplement the Platonic, 584; the theory of Aristotle, — pleasure the concomitant of the unimi)edcd energv of a )power, 585; nothing added in anti(|uity to the two the- ories of Plato and Aristotle, 586; file theo- ries of Plato and Aristotle reduced to unity, 687 ; in what sense the Platonic dogma is true,)/; .■ after compulsory iiiiiction pleasure higher than in ordinary cireunistances, 5&S; unfair to ap|>ly the magnifying eflect of contrast to disprove the positive reality of pleasure m<)r<' than of pain, ib. : pleasure and piiiii butli Absolute and Uchilive. 589; <'ardun held a theory identical with Plato's, ib. : his theory criticized, 590 ; Montaigne held a similar doctrine, ib : Descartes' doc- trine of the pleasurable, 591; groundle.ssly lauded for its novelty and importance, i6..- only a vague version of tliat of Aristotle, 592; Leibnitz adopted both the counter the- ories, ib. : doctrine of W'M ; doctrine of l>u Uos and Pouilly, ib.; of Sulzer, 595, 598; of Genoveni and Verri, 598; of Kant. 599; Classification of Feelings, 602 ; their prin- ciple of classification internal,!*.; admit of a twofold classification, as Causes and aj< Effects, ih. : as causes divided into Pleasur- able and Painful, (303; application of fore- going theory to explain in general tlie causes of pleasurable and painful feeling, ib., el seq.; apparent contnidietions of th« theory prove real coiilirniations, i^. ,■ Dolce far niente, ib. : Ennui, i',. : all Occupation either jilay or labor, ib. ; love of action sig- nalized as a fact in human nature by all observers, 604; by .Samuel Johnson, ib.; .\(hini Ferguson, ib. : Paley, 605; the theory confirmed by the phenomena of the Pain- ful Affections, ib., et .^eq ; of Urief, 60«j; authors by whom these observed, ib.: of Fear, 607; of Pity, ib. : of Energetic Emo- tions, 608; general causes which contribute to raise or lower the intensity of our ener- gies, ii>.. et .<.eq.: 1. Novelty, ib : II. Con- tra.«t, 609; III Harmony and Discord, 610; IV. Association, 611; this i)rinciplesuppo.«es jiains and pleasures not founded on itself, ib.: the attempt to resolve all our pleas- ures and pains into association vicious in a twofold way, 612; Ilutcheson more proi>- erly appreciated the influence of association, ib. : the I'eelings considered as KfTects, '.ibS et seq : as many ditferent feelings as there are distinct modes of mental activity, ih. ; two grand cla.sscs of, I. Sensations, ib., et seq.; of sensations, two classes, 1. of the Five Senses; 2. of tlio Sensus Vagus, 614 et seq. : organic pleasure and pain, ih ; how- far the theory of pleasure and pain af- fords an explanation of the plia>nomcna, 615; 11. Sentiments, divided into Contem- plative and Practical, 616 ; Coiitemphitive into those of the .Subsidiary Facullie-;, an-21 ; (ii-nerali/.ation and .Speciiication, bow iileasiinible. 6'Jl ; .'sci- ence, how pleasing, 622; I 'eduction fmm first principles, ib.: adaptation of Mi-niis to Ends, how pleasing, ib : Feelings that arise from the Imagination and iinderstnnillnK In ronjumtiiMi. 619^1 .»'7,624; Heaut> and Sublimity, 624 tt srq. : Reauly dislin^iii-J.e.l B8 absolute and Ke!ali»e. i."! . this di>finc- tion unsound, 025; thol'^eful and the I'eau 704 I X D ]•: X , tiful distinct, il> ; Si. Ali^iistiu's doctrine on this point superior to tlie modern, i*. / Kclutivo Hc:\nty, wliat, 62(5; the theory of I'ree or Ali.solnte Ueauty, ib. : tlie theory explains tlie diirerence of individnals in the iij)prebension of the Beautiful, (4. ; and affords the reason wliy our pleasure is less- ened when we analyze the object into its pa'.ts, ()27; Helative jJeauty from the con- formity of Jlean to Knd, ib.; judgments of Taste either Pure or mixed, 628; the lieau- tifal defined, ib.; the feelinj; of the Sublime jjartiy p!eas;:r!'.ble, partly painful, ib.. et seq; theory of the Sublime, ib.; the Sublime di- vided into that of Extension, Protension, and Intension, 629 et seq.; Kant quoted in illustration of the Sublime in its three forms, 030; tlie Picturesque, wherein it con- sists, and liow it difl'ers from the Sublime and l?e:iutifu!, 631; the Practical Feelings, ih. ; their divisions, 1. those relative to Self- Preservation, 632 ; 2 Enjo.\ ment of Exist- ence. 7h. , 3. Preservation of Species, ib. : 4. Tendency to Deveiopnient, 633 ; 5. the Moral Law. li. f"E!tocsoii (Adam), 61, 578; on love of action, 604. Feukariensis, 176, 272, 316. FiciiYK. referred to on definition of philoso- j.hy, 35; division of philosophy adopted by, 84. 202; issue of his Idealism, 204: his ob- jactio'.i to the doctrine of Natural Realism, wot'. yicijjns, Marsillius. 48. 176 ; quoted on a passage in I'iato's Timmis, 213, 271. Fli^t, Itev. Mr , case of, 2.37. FoKGE. De la, 162; held hypothesis of Divine Assistance 209. Foy.sfKCA, 468. Fkacastorius. quoted on Platonic philoso- phy, 289. FUAMCLIJJ, 53. FuEioius, Joannes Th.'mas, 96 Fries. 252, 288, 411, 429, 431, 438. FuoMOXDUf?, 270, 272. Function, what, 125. Gatien-Akxoult, 57, 58, 64; quoted on Ego, 116. 463. Gale, Tiieoph , 94. Galen, 39, .see Dogmati.sts; his doctrine of mental powers, 270, 291, 292; on Touch, 377. Gall, his mode of phrenological discovery, 650 et aer/. : how he met the argument against phrenology from the e.xistence and extent of the Frontal Sinuses, 654. See Phrenology and Sinu.ses. Garnieii, quoted, 50, 51. Gassendi, his division of philosophy, 84; used reflection in its psychological applica- tion, 262; held Pla.stic Medium, 214. 650; referred to on Aristotle's doctrine of spe- cies, 292; fundamental error of Stewart in regard to the philosophy of, 407; though a Sensatioiiulist he admitted Iceflection as a source o< knowledge, 408; and did not a»- similate Reflection to Sen.se, ib ; his divis- ion of the cognitive phenomena, ib. ; Intel- lect, according to him, has tliree functions, — 1. Intellectual apprehension. 409; 2. Re- flection, 410; 3 Reasoning, ib. ; 415. See Con servative Faculty GKFiJHL, ambiguous, 562. See Feeling Geneualizatiox, .tee Elaborative Faculty. General notions, see Elaborative Faculty. Genovesi,272, distinguished Perception from Sensation, 334, 513; ou pleasure, 598. Gerard (Alexander), on laws of Association, 480. (iKRUZEZ, 56, 75. (iLANDULyE Paccihoni. wliat, 656; argument against phrenology derived from, ib Gleig (Bishop), his opinion of Reid's pole- mic on perception, 298. Gnoseologia, what, 86. Gnostologia, fee Gnoseologia. GocLENius, Rudolphus, the first to apply the term p.^yrhology to a treatise relative to the human mind, 96, 163. Gorgias, the sophist, 204. GOVEANUS, Antonius, 513. Grammar, why usually designated an art, 81, 83; universal or philosophical, a nomo- logical science, 87- Grammarian, John the, see Philoponus. Gray. (|uoted, 433. Greek language, e.xample of its perfection, 123; expresses syntactical relations by flex- ion, 176 Gregory (Dr. James), his great memory, 426. Gregory, of Rimini, 176. 270, 316 Gregory, of Kazianzuni, quoted, 433 G reoory, of Nyssa, quoted on mental pow- ers, 270. Gkegorovips, quoted on memory of Guidi, 423. Gri.mm, 95. Gkotius, his great memory, 425 Gruithuisen, 377. GuiDi, Giulio, his great memory, 425. Gruyer, 262. Habit, what, 124; acquired habits, three the- ories of, viz : the mechanical, theory of consciousness without memory, and the theory of latency, 247-9, 255-7; explained in accordance with analogy by theory of mental latency, 257. Halle, i)o.stman of, case of, showing that the mind is active while body asleep, 233. IIal»er, 233 Hartley, his theory of habit, mechanical. 247. Hartleian School, 380. INDEX '05 IIavet, his edition of Pascal's Pensces, re- ferred to, 387. Uegel, referred to on definition of philoso- pliy, 30, 45. Heinsius, 413. Helvetius, quoted on the influence of pre- conceived opinions, 54, 178-9, see Attention. 11em.«tei!iiui8, 103,516; referred to on Beauty, 026. Hkxry, of Ghent, his doctrine of mental powers, 272. IIeuac'Lides Ponticus, 34. llEEACLITUS, 03, 352. HKRHAirr, 501, 570, see Feelings. Hep.mi.e, see Animonius. llEUoixjTUS, uses tlie verb sii:s, his great memory, 426. HuBXEK, distinguished Vital Sense from Or- ganic Senses, 377. Hugo a Sancto Victore, 316. Huss, 01. HcME, quoted on te.-timony of consciousness in Perception, 201, 348; his nihilism a .skep- tical conclusion from the premises of pre- vious philosophers, 470; doubts the tnitli of the testimony of consciousness to our mental unity, 259; his skepticism, its mean- ing, use, and results, 642 ft Sf.q. ; quoted as to ground of rejecting the testimony of consciousness in Perception, 3.58; on laws of Association, 4.30; (|Uoted on Imagina- tion, 4.J5; quoleil on Nominalism, 477, 483, 022, see Kegulative Faculty; 641, 5(r« ibid.: refuted attempts to establish the principle of Causality on that of Contradiction, 5'1<). HuTciiESON, regarded Consciousness as a siiecial faculty. 144: distinguishcil Percep- tion from .Sensation, 3.'J-I; (juoted on divis- ion of senses into live. 377, 579; ijuoted and COinmen; and by Julius Cajsar Scaliger. ib. * INDEX. 707 Laromiouiere, quoted on hypothesis of Occasioual Causes, 209 et seq. ; on I're- established Ilarniouy, 210 el seq.; on I'las- tic Mfdiuui, 211; on Physical Influence, 212 et seq ; quoted On abstraction, 468 Latency, mental, wliat, and its three de- grees, 235 tt ieq. .See Consciousness. Latin language, expresses syntactical rela- tions by flexion, 176. Laval, Comtesse de, case of, 238 Law, Hisliop, liis doctrine of substance, 108. Le Clerc, see Clerc Lee (Dr Henry), referred to on Locke, 407. Lkibmtz, referred to on delinition of phi- losophy, 35, 48, 95; first to limit the term capacity to j)assivity of mind, 123; regarded faculty of knowledge as the fundamental power of mind, 129: quoted on veracity of consciousness, 184,208; held liypotliesis of l'reestabli.shed Harmony, 208, 210; opposed Locke's doctrine that the mind is not al- ways conscious, 221; but does not precisely answer tlie question mooted, ib. ; reterred to on minima of sense, 244 ; the first to pro- claim the doctrine of mental latency, 251; unfortunate in the terms he employed to designate the latent modifications of mind, t6. ,• referred to on our mental identity, 2tj0, 271, 280, 404, see Ji'ecessity ; 414, 496, see Lan- guage; 513, 515, see Begulative Faculty; 592, see Feelings. Leidenfisost, 370; the first to distinguish the Vital Sense from the Organic Senses, 377. Leo Mebrxus, 290. Lesping, quoted, 9. See Knowledge. Lewd, its etymology, 53. LilsEiiTY (if Will, 556 et seq. ; the question of, as viewed by the Scottish school, 692; may be dealt with in two ways, 693. LiCIIETUS, 176. LocKK, 51; adopted (iassendi's division of j)hilosophy, 84: ((Unted on jiower, 121-2; his doctrine of lieflexiou as a source of knowl- edge, 162, held that the mind cannot exist at the same moment in two diflerent states, 173; his e Causality ; 546. Logic, defined, 31, 87; as initiative course of philosophy, 31, 90; class of, how to be con- ducted, 10, 11, see Philosophy; presupposes a certain knowledge of the operations of the mind, 44; controversy among the an- cients regarding its relation to philosophy, 81; why usually designated an an, 83; a nomological science, 87; Dianoetic beet name of. ib.; its place in philosophy, and in a course of philosophical instruction, 90. Lombard, Peter, 316. Lossics, Lexikon, 546, 573, 601. LucAN, quoted, 606. LuritETius, quoted, 184, 212, 293, 6i39; on mixed feeling of the sublime, 630. LcDERS, 578. Luther, 61, 63. Lydus, Priscianus, on unity of knowledge, 48; the Platonic doctrine of Perception as expounded by, 293. MAAS9, 252. Mackintosh, Sir James, 92; his great mem- ory, 426 Macrobius, referred to, on definition of phi- losophy, 37, 114. Maine de liiran, 474, 542. see Causality. Ma.jor, .John, referred to, on Intuitive and Abstractive Knowledge, 316 Malkbkancue, 9, 64, 108, li)3; quoted on place and importance of attention, 130 et seq. ; the study of his writings recom- mended, 182, 201; a.ssunies our conscious- ness in sleep, 218, 271; his doctrine of Ptr- ception,302; distinguished Perception lYoiu Sensation, 334, 513, 642, see Causality. Man, an end unto himself, 4; must in gen- eral reduce himself to an instrument, 4: perfection and happiness, the two absolute ends of man, 14; these ends coincide, ib.; his distinctive characteristic, 21: a social animal, 59; men influence each other in times l)oth ol tranquillity and social con- vulsion, 61; relation of the indi\ idual to social crises, ib. Manilius, quoted, 120. 4*30. Mantdanup, Bnp.. quoted. 6.36. MANfTiue, Pauliis, (luoted on memory of .^folino, 423. JlAiti'Ei-LUSi, Nonius, 353. Maksilius, (of Inglien), 176, 292. Martial, quoted, 460. MAi;TiNfS Scriblerus, quoted, 467- 708 INDEX. Mapteu of Sentences, see Lombard JIatkrialism, absolute, Iiow a philosophical system is often prevented from tailing into, 206. Mayxettus Maynetius, 447. Mazure, 9, 35. Mediate Knowledge, see Knowledge. Meinei:?. S4, 61. 560, 598. Melamiitiion. 98, 108,513; "cognitio omnis iiituilivu est definitiva," quoted by, 562. Memory, sec Conservative Faculty. Menage, :33, 138. Mendelssohx, Moses, 561, see Feelings ; quoted on Descartes' doctrine of pleasure 591,594,S''e Feelings; referred to on Beauty, 626. Mexdoza, 485. Mental phaenomena, see Consciousness and Mind. Mental E.xercise, higher than the mere knowledge of truth, 6 — 9. See Knowledge. ^JlETAi'HY.'iiCAL, see Metaphysics. Metaphysics, science of, its sphere in wide.st sense, 85; comprehension and or- der of author's course of, 85, 90; Meta- physics proper, Ontology or Inferential Psychology, wliat, 88; metaphysical terms originally of physical application, 93. &# Psychology and Philosophy. Method, what, 68. See Critical Method. Methodists, the, a sect of physicians, no- ticed, 38. Mill, James, quoted to the effect that we first obtain a knowledge of the parts of the object in perception, 369 et seg. Milton, quoted, 433. Mind, human, the noblest object of specula- tion, 17; Phavorinus, Pope, Sir Thomas Browne, quoted to this effect, 18; when the study of mind rises to its highest dig- nity, ib ; its phEEUomeua contrasted with those of matter, 20; this the philosophical study by preeminence, 44, see Philosophy and Psychology; its phenomena distrib- uted into three grand classes, 86, see Con- sciousness; etymology and application of, 109; can be defined only a posteriori, ib.: thus defined by Aristotle and Keid, 110; •can exist in more than one state at the ¥ame time, 173 et seq.; hypotheses proposed in regard to mode of intercourse between Hiind and body, 208 et seq. ; 1. Occasional Cau,*es, ib. ; 2. Pree.stablished Harmony, 210; 3 Plastic Medium, 211; 4. Physical Influence, 212; historical order of these hypotheses, ib.; they are unphilosophical, 214; activity and passivity always con- joined in manifestations of mind, 216, see Consciousness; terms indicative of the jire- domiuance of these counter elements in, 216-17; opinions in regard to its relation to the bodily orgauism and parts of nervous system, 649- 50 et seq. ; its powers not realljr distinguishable from the thinking princi- jde, nor really different from each other, 267; what meant by powers of, and the rel- atative opinion of philosophers, 268 — 272j[_ psychological division of the phenomena of what, 273; phaenomena of, presented in complexity, 281; three rules of the analy- sis of the phaenomena of, 282; these rule* have not been observed by psychologists, ib. ; no ground to suppose that the mind is situated solely in any one part of the body, 356; we materialize mind in attributing to it the relations of matter, ib ; sum of our knowledge of the connection of mind and body, 357; we are not warranted, accord- ing to Biunde, to ascribe to the jiowers of mind a direction either outwards or in- wards, 565. See Energy. JIiNiMU.M visibile, what, 243; audibile, ib Mnemonic, 86 jiocenicus, 163. 3IODE. what, 106. .Modification, what, 106. 3IOLIN.EUS, 68. MoLSA, quoted, 434. Monboddo, Lord, 128, 238; his doctrine of vision, 291, 354. Monism, see Consciousness. Monro, Dr. (tertius). quoted and referred to in reference to Frontal Sinus, 670, 673, etc. Montaigne, 46, 60, 63; on pleasure, 590, see Feelings. More, Dr.'llenry, quoted, 23. Morton, Dr , remarks on his tables on the size of the brain, 660—662. MtJLLER (Julius), 387 MiJLLER, Von, quoted, 9. See Knowledge. Muratori, his great memory, 426. MURETUS, 421. See Conservative Faculty. Mussulman doctors, 542. See Causality. Natur, its meaning in German philosophy, 29. Natural Dualism, see Natural Realism Necessity, all necessity to us subjective, 403; Leibnitz the first to announce it as the cri- terion of truth native to the mind, 404; Kant the first who fully applied this crite- rion, ib. See Regulative Faculty. Nemesius, 176, 6.50. Newton, Sir Isaac, 178, 180. See Attention. Niethammer, 424. Nihilism, see Consciousness. Noetic, how to be employed. 514. NoMiNALLSM, see Elaborative Faculty. Nominalists, their doctrine of mental pow- ers, 272; rejected doctrine of sjjecies, 292. N0MOL9GY of mind, what, 86; its subdivis- ions, ib.; of the Cognitive faculties, ib. ; of the Feelings. 87 ; of the Couative pow- ers, 16. INDEX '09 NOOLOGY, 87 Non-Contradiction, law of, 526, 680; limits of argument from, 680; lias two applica- tions, a Logical aud Psychological, 680. Nof/s, 614. KUNNKSIUS, 513. NuNNKLEY, referred to for case of couching, 391. Ob.ject, meaning and history of the term, 112. S« Subject. Ob.jective, see Subject. Occam, 176; his doctrine of mental powers, 272. Occasional Causes, hypothe-sis of, see Mind; by whom maintained, 208. 214. Oken. his nihilism, 204. Olymimodohus, referred to, 46; referred to on mental powers, 271. Ontology, see Metaphysics. Operation, wliat, 124. Opinion, see Custom. Opouinus, case of, showing that one sense may be asleep while others are awake, 233. Orectk', term objectionable as common des- ignation botli of will aud desire, 126. Order, what, 68. Organic I'leasure. See Feelings. Ormond, Duke of, 607. Ovid, rjuoted, 262, 533; on pleasure of grief, 606. OviEDo, on excitation of species, 428. Pain, theory of, see Feelings. I'ainful Atfections. See Feelings. 1'alkv, quoted on love of action, 405. Paludanus, 317. Pascal, 46, 60, 62; quoted on man's igno- rance of himself, 214; quoted, 377; his great memory, 425; quoted on dreaming, 457, 513, 528. Passions, their place in education. 12; sub- jugation of, practical condition of philoso- phy, 67, 66. See I'hilosoijhy. Pastimks, 617. &/> Feelings. Patricius, quoted on mental powers, 271; his expression of the n-lation of our knowl- edge to e.\i)erience, quoted, 285. I>E.Mi!ROKG, Lord, 607. ^ Perception, K.xternal, the doctrine of, a ■^J^ cardinal point in philosophy, 2'J7: histori- cal survey of hypotheses in regard to, pro- posed, 286; principal point in regard to, on which philosophers differ, I'A., and 205; two grand hypothe.ses of Mediate Perception, 287; each of these admits of various sub- ordinate hypotheses, i';. ,■ Rcid did not dis- tinguish the two forms of the Kepreseiita- tive Hypothesis, 288; Reid's historical view of the theories of criticised, 280 et setj., 298; wrong in regard to the Platonic theory of, 2S9-90; his account of the Aristotelic doc- trine of, 291-2; theory of Democritus and Epicurus, 293: the Cartesian doctrine of 294 el sfc^.,299; Malebranclie cited in regard to opinion of Descartes on, 301; Keiii's ac- count of the opinion of Malebranclie on, 302; of Arnauld, 302-3; of Locke. :}'«—»)7-, opinions of Xewton, Clarke, Hook. Xortis, S07; of llobbes, 308; Le Clerc, 309; Crousaz 310; ends proposed in the review of Reid'8 account of opinions on, 311; Reid right in attributing to philosoi)liers in general the cruder doctrine of Representative Percep tion, 312; was Reid a Natural Realist, li, et seq., see Reid aud Knowledge; distinc tion of Perception I'roper from Sensation Proper, 3;?2 et ser/ ; use of term yiTt'iiiioH previously to Reid, ih : historical notice of the distinction of perception proper from sensation proper, 334; nature of the phic nomena. — perception and sensation, illus- trated, 3.'35 et seq : their contrast the special manifestation of a contrast which >iivides Knowledge and Feeling, i6. ,■ perception and sensation precisely distinguished, it.; grand law by which the ijha-nomeua of per- ception and sensation are governed in their reciprocal relations, 3.3t'); this law estab- lished aud illustrated — 1 From a compari- son of the several senses, ib. ; 2. From the several impressions of the same sense, 337; distinction of perception from sensation of importance only in the doctrine of Intui- tive Perception, 340; no reference fri>m the internal to the external in. 341 : taken out of the list of the primary faculties through a false analysis, ib.; the possibility of an immediate perception of external objects intelligible, 356 et set/. : what meant by i)er- ceiving the material reality, 357; the total and real object in, ib.: what meant by th« external object i)ercelve(l, i6., 374: nothing especially inconceivalile in the doctrine of an immediate perception, 35'^: principal points of difference between the author's doctrine of Perception and that of Reid and Stewart, 397 et seq.: 1. In regard to the relation of the external object to the senses, ib.; 2. In regard to the number and consecution of the elementary phajnomena, 398 et seq.: common doctrine of philoso- phers regarding the organic imiiression in, ib.: relation of sensation proper to |K'rcep- tion proper, 3il9. sec also 67S; Repro.-enta- tive Perception, hypothesis ol, 3>'A tt stq.; violates all the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis, I'f, rr .«r(7..- 1. Liinecessaiy. .'iiS; 2. Subverts that which it is deviseil to ex- plain, 3'omological, ib., see homology; Inferential, 88, see Meta- physics ; origin of the term, 91 ; its use vindicated, 91-2; by whom first applied to science of mind, 95; difficulties and facili- ties of psychological study, 260 et seq., see Consciousness ; psychological powers, what, 268 ; psychological divisions, what, 273; three rules of psychological analysis, 282; these rules have not been observed by psy- chologists, ih. Psychological analysis, see Psychology and Mind. Psychological divisions, see Psychology and Mind. Psychological powers, see Psychology and 3Iiud. Ptolsmy, 291. PURCHOT, 608. Pythagoras, commonly said to have first assumed the name philosopher,^; his view of the cliaracter of a philosopher, 82; where- born, and when he flourished, 33; deiini tions of philosophy referred to, 37, see Phi- losophy, 56, 74. Quality, what, 106; essential and acciden tal, ib. Quixtilian, 34, 83; uses the term conscious in the modern signification, 136. Raleigh, SirW., 63. Ram.say, Chevalier, 541. Kealisji, Natural, or Natural Dualism, what, 203; that Natural Realism is the doctrine of Consciousness, acknowledged by philos- ophers of all classes, ib. ,- objections to the doctrine of, detailed and criticized, 349— 59; I. The cognition of aught external to the mind is equivalent to the mind acting, and. therefore, existing out of itself, 349; refuted, 350; II. What immediately knows must be- the same as or similar to that which is known, 350; influence of this principle on the history of philosophy, ib.; refuted, .352; III. The mind can only know immediately that to which it is immediately present, ib. this objection has been redargued in three- different ways; 1. by Sergeant, 353; 2. by Empedocles,etc.,354; .3. by Reid and Stew- art, »6.,- refuted, 355-6, see Perception; IV. The object of peiception variable, and,, therefore, subjective, 3.58 , proceeds on a mistake of what the object in jjerception is,, 359; V. The nature of the Ego as an intel- ligence endowed with will, renders it nec- essary that there should be representative modifications in the mind of external ob- jects, 359; this objection involves sundry vices, ib. ; these objections to the doctrine- of, incompetent, 134 ; hypothesis of Rep- resentative I'erception substituted in room of the doctrine of, 361 et seq. See I'ei-cep- tiou. Reasoning, see Elaborative Faculty. Recollection, see Conservative Faculty. Redintegration, law of, see Reproductive Faculty. Reflection, contained in consciousness, 160 et seq.; see Consciousness; Locke not the first to use the term in its psychological ap plication, 162 ; authors by whom the term thus used previously to Locke, 163; distin- guished from observation, ib.; attention and reflection acts of the same faculty, 165, see Attention. Regis, Sylvain, his division of philosophy, 84. Regnier, 63. Regulative Faculty, what, 277, 285 ; th« I !k INDEX, 713 tena/aeulty not properly applicable to, 277, f>12; designations of, 512-14; nomenclature of the cognitions due to, 614 ; iinportunce of the distinction of native and adventitious knowledge, ib. ; criterion of necessity lirst enounced by Leibnitz, 405, 515; partially anticipated by Descartes, 515; and by Spin- oza, 516; the cnouncement of this criterion a great step in the science of mind, ib.; Leibnitz qnoted on criterion of necessity, 516 — 20 ; Keid discriminated native from adventitious knowledge by the same crite- rion, independently of Leibnitz, 520; Held quoted to this etTect, 52fJ-22; Hume ajjpre- hended the distinction 522; Kant, the first who fully applied the criterion, 405, 522; philosophers divided in regard to what cog- nitions ought to be classed as ultimate, and what as modifications of the ultimate, 523; Reid and Stewart have been censured for tlieir too easy admission of first principles, ib. ; Keid quoted in self vindication, ib. ; Stewart quoted to the same ellect, ib. ; that Keid and Stewart otler no systematic deduc- tion of the primary elements of human rea- son, is no valid ground for disparaging their labors, 524; philosophers have not yet es- tablished tlie principle on which our ulti- mate cognitions are to be classitied and re- duced to system, 525; necessity, either Tos- itive or Negative, as it results from a power or from a powerlessness of mind, 525 et seq. ; I)ositive necessity illustrated by the act of I'erception, 525; by an arithmetical exam- ple, ib. ; negative necessity not recognized by philosophers, 526; illustrated, ib. et aeq.; principles referred to in the discussion, ib. et seq.; — 1. The law of Non-Contradiction, t'fe. ,• 2. The law ot Excluded Miildle, i6. ,■ grand law of thought, — That the Conceiv- able lies between two contradictory ex- tremes, 527 et seq. ; this called the law of f he Conditioned, 630; estubJi^ihed and illustra- ted by reterence t<> Sjmce. 1 "', as a maxi- mum, 527 ; space either bounded or not bounded, ib. ; space as absolutely bounded inconceivable, ib.: space as infinitely un- bounded inconceivable, 62S ; though both these contrntlictory alternatives are incon- ceivable, one or other is yet necessary, ib.; space, 2°, as a minimum, ib., et seq. , an ab- solute minimum of space, and its infinite divisibility, alike inciiiici'ivable, i6. ,• further illustrntion liy refeix-nce to Time, P as a maximum, .620 et .^rq. .• I. time a parte ante. as an absolute whole, inconceivable, ib.; 2. time as an infinite reeress, inconceivable. ib.; 3 time as an intinite i>rogr<'s.«, Incon- ceivable, ill : time, 2-, as a minimum, i'/ . et srq. : the moment ol" time either divisible to infinity, or composed of certain abso- lutely smallest parts, — both alternatives in- conceivable, i6. ; the counter opinion to the principle of the Conditioned, foui.ded on vagueness and confusion, 530; sum of the autlior's doctrine, ib.; the author's doctrine both the one true and the only orthodox inference, 531; to assert that the infinite can be thought, but only inadequately thought, is contradictory, ib. ; law of the Conditioned in its applications, 532 et seq., see Causality; contradictions proving the psychological theory of the Conditioned, 529. Reid, 61 ; defines mind a posteriori. 110; wrongly identities hypothesis and theory, 120; wrong in his criticism of Locke on power. 122 et seq. ; gives no special account of Consciousness, 131, 139; does not allow that all immediate knowledge is conscious- ness, 140; e and contradictory, 151—3; the same holds true- of his doctrine of Conception as an imme- diate knowledge of the distant, 153; con- tradistinguished Consciousness from Per- ce|ition, 164 ; principal merit accorded to, as a philosopher, 1.66; his doctrine of con- sciousness shown to be wrong 156 et seq. ; from the principle that the knowledge of opi)osites is one. 1.6'>-7; it is suicidal of his doctrine of an immediate knowledge of the external world. 1.67 et seq. : it involves a gen- eral absurdity, 168; it destroys the distinc- tion of consciousness itself, i6. ,- supposition on which some of the self-contradictious of Keid's doctrine may be avoided, 1.69; but untenable, 160; imiintains that Attention and Reflection are acts not contained in consciousuess, 16.; wrong in his censure of Locke's use of the term Reflection, 161; and in saying that Reflection is employed in ri"- lation to objects of sense, li>2 ; i|UOted on Attention, 164; inclines to the doctrine that (jod is the only real agent in the univeme, 210; his theory of habit, mechanical, 247, refuted by Stewart, 24S; referreil to on our Mental Identity, 2»'iii: his doctrine of IVr- Ception adopted by .Schulze, and oppo,«ed by him to the Hypothetical Reali.- theois in I'erception, 2'?'*—'/.'; his historical view of the theories of I'ercopflon criti- cised, 2S9 et seq.. see rerception; plac< of the doctrine of rerception in his phi. '■-.►- jihy, 297; was Reid a Natural Realist' .512 ft '■eq.; his view of the ■lt^lincllon of Intu- itive and KepresenfHiivc knowledge oh scure. S13 ; and hence his pliilosopby in 90 714 INDEX. volved in confusion, 314, see Knowledge; order of tlie dir^cussion, 31C — 1. Grounds on which Keid may be supposed not a Nat- ural Realist, 317—322; 2. Positive evidence that lieid was a Natural Realist, 323—5,329, 340; the first champion of Natural Realism, in these latter times, 330; his account of Perception and Sensation, 333 et seq. ; antici- pated in his distinction of Perception from Sensation, 334 et seq. ; quoted on primary and socondary qualities of matter, 343 et ^eq.; his doctrine of Perception as summed up by Stewart, 354; his doctrine of Percep- tion involves that of Occasional Causes, 355; and is thus exposed to many objections, ib. ; his doctrine of Perception compared with that of the author, 397 et seq., see Per- ception, 463, 520, see Regulative Faculty-. JlEiD'S Works, author's edition, referred to, 51, etc, Reixhold, 252,465, 560; quoted on the theory of pleasure of Du Bos and Pouilly, 595; on that of Sulzer, 597 et seq. Kelation, doctrine of, 688-9 ; Relative and Correlative, ib. Eeligiox, see Theology and Deity. Bepeesentative Faculty, what, 275, 284, 449 ; representation and reproduction not always exerted by the same individual in equal in- tensity, but all strong or weak in the same individual with reference to the same class of objects, 451; the terms Imagination, Phan- tasy, denote most nearly the representative process, ib.; philosophers have divided Im- agination into Reproductive (Conception) and Productive, ib.; this discrimination unfortunate in itself and in its nomencla- ture, 452; Imagination, as a plastic energy, is a complex operation, ib.; the act of rep- resentation, what, ib. ; two powers by which the representative faculty is determined to energy; 1. The Reproductive Faculty, 453; 2. the faculty of Relations, — Elaborative, ib. ; the Imagination 'of common language equivalent to the processes of Representa- tion and Comparisou, 454; the process of Kepresentation the principal constituent of Imagination as commonly understood, i6. ; Imagination not limited to objects of sense, ib. ; Aucillon quoted, 455 — 7; three princi- pal orders in which Imagination represents ideas — 1. Natural; 2. Logical; 3. Poetical, 455 ; associations tedious, unpleasing, and agreeable, 456; peculiar kinds of Imagina- tion determined by peculiar orders of asso- ciation, ib. ; difference between a cultivated and a vulgar mind, ib. ; dreaming, somnam- bulism, and reverie, effects of Imagination, determined by association, 457 et seq.; An- cillon quoted, 459-60 ; the happiness and misery of the individual dei)endent on the character of his habitual associations, 459 ; influence of Imagination on human life, 459-60; Imagination employs the organs of sense in the representations of sensible ob- jects, 461, see also 386 ; voluntary motions imitated in and by the Imagination, 461; feelings concomitant of Imagination, 618, see Feelings; as Reproductive and as Plas- tic, ib. ; an act of Imagination involves the comprehension of the manifold as a single whole, 619 ; office of the Plastic Imagina- tion, ib. Representative Perception, hypothesis of, see Perception. Reproductive Faculty, what, 275, 283, 428; the name reproductive inappropriate, 427; limitation in which name employed, ib.; interest excited by the phenomenon of Re- production, ib. ; Aristotle's analysis of the phenomenon nearly perfect, ib. ; the train of thought subject to laws, 428; this illus- trated by Hobbes, ib. ; the expression train of thought includes the pha;nomena of Cog- nition, Feeling, and Conation, 429; is there any law besides that of simple connection which regulates this train? ib.; the point on which philosophers differ, and question to be considered, ib. ; conditions of Repro- duction as generalized by philosophers, — in all seven, ib. ; notice of opinions of phi- losophers on laws of Association, 430; Aris- totle reduces the laws of Association to three, and implicitly to one, ib. ; St Au- gustin explicitly reduces these laws to one, which the author calls the law of Redin- tegration, ib.; opinions of Malebranche, Wolf, Bilflnger, Hume, Gerard, Beattie, Stewart, Brown, noticed, ifi.; the laws enu- merated admit of reduction to two, and these two again to one grand law, 431 ; the influence of the special laws as associating principles illustrated, 432 et seq.; I. the law of Smiultaneity, i6.,- II. The law of Affinity, its subordinate applications, — 1. Resem- blance, ib.; 2 Contrariety, 433; 3. Contigu- ity, 434; 4. Whole and Parts, ib.; 5. Cause and Effect, 435; Simultaneity and Affinity resolvable into the one grand law of Redin- tegration, 435; no legitimate presumption against the truth of the law of Redintegra- tion if found inexplicable, 435: U. Schmid quoted, 438; attempted illustration of the ground on which this law reposes, from the unity of the subject of the mental energies, 437; the laws of Simultaneity and Affinity explicable on the same principle, 438; thoughts apparently unassociated seem to follow each other immediately, 439; two modes of explication adopted by philoso- phers,'^0; to be explained on the principle of latent modifications, ih.; the counter solution untenable, ib., see also 244, 245-6. 253 .347; Reproductive Faculty divided iutc INDEX, 715 two, — Spontaneous Suggestion and Remi- niscence, 275, 441; what lieniinisctnce in- volves, ib. ; St. AugustinV analysis of Kemi- niscence, — its conJition the law ofTotality, 442; Cardaillac (juoted, 443 — 19; defect in the analysis of Memory and Keproduction by psychologists, 443; element in the pha;- nomena, which the common theory fails to explain, 444; conditions under which Kemi- niscence is determined to exertion, 445; re- lations of our thoughts among themselves and with the determining circumstances of the moment, 448; geueraJ conclusions, —thoughts awakened not only in succes- eion but simultaneously, 449; of these some only become objects of clear conscious- ness, ib. Retkntiox, .«<•« Conservative Faculty. Hevkiue, an effect of Imagination deter- mined by Association, 457. I;iiv;tokk\ why usually designated an art, I!ic iiAl;l>us, 292 IIU'iiTEn. Jean Paul, 9. IflTTEI!, 113. I;i::neu, 533. RoELL, on Descartes' doctrine of Perception, •Sfil. l!oME. Val., 36. KOD38EAU, 493. IfovKit-Coi.LAUD, recommended the l^cottish Philosophy in France, 644. Rl'HXKEXirs, 420, 422 Kfsii. I>r., case of mental latency gi\'eu by, 237. Sanscrit, expresses syntactical relations by flixinn. 175. ScAi.KiEU (Joseph Justus), 180, see Abstrac- tion; 413, see Conservative Faculty; his great memory, ib. ScAi.ioER (Julius Cjcsar), 98, 215, 271; on Touch, 2S1 ■37i!. 41.3, n'e Conservative Fac- ulty ; his curiosity regarding Reminiscence, 428, 5UII, see Language. SiiiviBi.KK, .35, 83. SiHEiKi.KU. .35, 46, 109, 570. fc!ciiELi.iN<;. referred to, 5; on dclinition of pliiloM.phy, 3ti, 202. Slim i.i:k. quoted, 62. ^«cllI.ElKltMA^Il^;I!. 113. SciiMiu. M .96,252. 414. 429,431; quoted, 439, srr Reproductive Faculty. Sciioi.ASTif ))liil(>sophy. 76; great majority of schoolmen lu-liI doctrine of >iM-eies, 292; Certain of distinguished Perception from .*^ensation. 334; regarded excitation of the fjieries with peculiar wondiT. 427: (|ues- tion with, whether tiod the only etl'.cient cause, 542. ficHVLZE (G. E.), 262,349, 369, 360, 670. See Feelings. Schwab, 546. Science, application of the term, 81. See Art. SCOTISTS, 272. ScoTUP (Duns), 9; see Knowledge; liis doc- trine of reflection, 163, 176; his doctrine ol mentf.l powers, 271, 292, 316. Seco'dauy (qualities of matter, see I'rimary. Secusdus, Joaunes, quoted, 339. Self, see Ego. Selp-Coxsciocsxep.s, faculty of, a branch of the I'resentative F'aculty, 400; philoso- phers less divided in opinion touching, than in regard to Perception, ih : con- trasted with Perception, their fundamen- tal forms, 401 el ser/.; its sphere, 402; two modes of dealing with the phacnomena given in, ib., tt seq.; corresjionds willi tlie Reflection of Locke, 404; the mere admis- sion of a faculty of, of no import in deter- mining the anti-sensual character of a plii- losophy, 410. Sei,p-Love, an enemy to philosophical pro- gress, 66. Sexeca (L. A.), 35, 59; on division of philoso- phy, 78, 80. 291, 636; his tragedies quoted, 445, 606, 609. Seneca (M. A.), 426. Sensation, see I'erception. Sensations, see Feelings. Senti.ments, .vfe Feelings. Sekgeant, 41, 54; paradoxically accepted the duality of consciousness, 203. asi. 353; his view of Locke's doctrine of I'erception, 307. 'S CiRAVESANDE, 312, 546. Shame, 6.32. Shakspeare, quoted, 339; on Resemblance us principle of Association, 432, 457. SllENSTONE, (jnoted, 607. SlOHT, sense of, two counter questions re- garding sphere of, 379 et seq.; — 1. Does vision afford us a i)riniary knowledge _of extension.' ib.,etseq.: color the proper ob- ject of, ib.; Berkeley the lirst to deny that extension object of, ib.; tliis also denied by others, ib . etsrq.; the jjcrceplion of exten- sion nece.>< cogni- zant of extetision. 3>vj; the .-^eiise by pre- eminence coni|)etent (o tlic |M;rceplion ot extension, 386; D'Alembert ijuoted in sup- port of foregoing view. 388: 2. Is Siglit exclusively the sense Which afl'ords us a knowledge of e.xtension. or doe.t it afford this knowledge only in conjunction with Touch? 389 el seq.; tlic former alternative maintained by Plainer, i'*.. «•/ srq ; phe- nomena that f;ivor Plalner's doctrine. .391; supported also by < 'he.'elden's cnse of couch- ing. .392 ri .'"/ the author profesM-s no de- cided o|)inion on the question, 393; 3. Uow 71 !3 INDEX. do we obtain our knowledge of Visual Dis- tance? ib., el seq.; visual distance, betore Berkeley, regarded as an original percep- tion, lb.; circunif^tances which assist us in Ibrniiiig our judgment respecting visual distance, on what dependent, 39-1; Berke- ley's doctrine thrown into doubt by the analogy of the lower animals, 395; Adam Smith quoted to this effect, ib. SiMPLicius, his employment of (rucaicr^rjo-is, 135-6; on Touch, 376. Simon Simonius, referred to on Aristotle's doctrine of species, 293, 447. Sims, his mistaken -criticism Of the author's results of experiments ou weight of the braiu, 661. Sinuses, Frontal, their nature and relations, 654,662; their bearing on the doctrines of Phrenology, 654-5, 662 et sfq.; nature and effect of, 667-8 ; indication of, 668; frequency of, 669—671; extent of, 672; table exhibit- ing their variable extent and unapprecia- ble impediment in a phrenological relation, 675. SiNSAUT, distinguished Perception from Sen- sation, 334. Skill, games of, 617. See Feelings. Sloth, subjugation of, practical condition of philosophy, 57, 66. Smith. Adam, referred to on wonder as cause of philosophy, 56; on object of Perception, 374, 377, 393, 395, see Sight ; quoted on nom- inalism, 477. 494, 5ee Language. Socrates, probably the first to familiarize the term philosopher. 34, see Philosophy ; on conditions of self-knowledge, 57, 75, 178, see Attention. Somnambulism, consciousness without mem- ory the characteristic of, 223; the want. of memory in our visions in sleep does not prove them to have been somnambulic. 224; an effect of imagination determined by as- sociation, 4.58, 400. Sophists, the, noticed, 34, 75. SORBIERE, 308. SosicuATES, referred to, 33. Space, known a priori, extension, a posteriori, 346; a form of the faculty of Perception, 401 ; if space be a necessary form of thought, is the mind itself extended? 402, 525, see Regulative Faculty. Species, oi)inions regarding, 291 et seq., see Ari.stotle and Aristotelians. Spinoza, regarded faculty of knowledge as the fundamental power of mind, 129, 516, see Regulative Faculty. Spirit, term objectionable as applied to mind, 94; corresponding terms in other languages, ib. Spuuzhei>[, how he met the objections to Plirenology from the existence and extent of the Frontal Sinuses, 654. Stallbaum, 213, 290. State, what, 106. Statius, quoted, 606. Steeb, 180. Steinbakt, 493, see Language. Stewart (Dugald), 64, 94, 95; referred to on Descartes' doctrine of Substance, 108; gives no special account of Consciousness, 131; does not allow that all immediate knowl- edge is consciousness, 140; liolds conscious- ness to be a special faculty, 145, see Reid; maintains that Attention and Reflection are acts not contained in consciousness, 160; misrepresents Reid"s doctrine of the meaning and difference of Attention and Reflection, 161; his oversight in regard to discussion of Attention, 162; quoted ou the question as to wliether we can attend to more than a single object at once, 165—167; his doctrine on this subject criticised, 168; his e.xcellent observations on the practical bearings of Attention, 182; confounds the two degrees of the evidence of conscious- ness, 189; maintained that God is the only real agent in the universe, 210; his expla- nation of an anomalous phsenomeua of Association, 245 et seq. ; difficulties of his theory ou this point, 246; quoted against the mechanical theory of habit, 248 et seq. ; his own theory on this point refuted, 2.5ii; denies that the faculties of the mind are independent existences, 268; his distinction of the qualities of matter, 345; quoted to the effect that we first obtain a knowledge of the parts of the object in Perception, 366 et seq ; maintained that extension is not an object of Sight, 368; quoted, 404, see Locke; 408, see Gassendi; his great mem- ory, 426; his chapter on memory in Ele- ments recommended, 427, 429: on laws of Association, 430; quoted on law of Simul- taneity, 431; quoted on terms abstract and general, 474; a Nominalist, 476; quoted on Kominalism, 484, 494, see Language; 524, see Regulative Faculty, 541. Stoics, borrowed their division of pbilosO" phy from Seneca, 79. Sturm, J. C. 119, 541, 542. Strigelius, Victorinus, 108, 513. SuABEDissEN, 414, See Conservative Faculty. SuAREZ, brought into use the term injiuxtts, 213; his definition of a cause, ib. Sub.;ect, of a proposition, see Elaborative Faculty. Sub.ject, 2. Substratum, what, 96, 104; con- scious subject what, 110; use of the term subject vindicated, 111 ; terms subject and object, their origin and meaning. 111, 112, errors arising from want of these terms, 112, Sub.jective, see Subject. Sublime, see Feelings. Substance, the meaning of. 104, 107; philos I X D E X . 717 ophers have fallen into three errors regard- ins, 108; law of, 532. SuBSTAJiTiALiSM, see ConsciousDess. SUBSTEATOM, see Subject. .suLZEU, 252, 500; ou pleasure, 595, see Feel- ings 2jfaier organ requires, as condition of its exercise, the movement of the voluntary muscles, 37a. See Sight. ToussAiNT, 179. Tralles, 252. Tre>delemiero. 104, 124. TRis.MECiisTLS, Hermes (the mythical). quoted on mental powers, 271; his detlnitiou of the Deity, 387. Troxler, 465. Tucker, Abraham, 177. 252, 307. TURWOT, 497. Srr Language. TYRiu8,Max!mu.s, quoted on Plato's doctrine of relation of mind to body. 213. TZETZES. relerred toon duliuitioiis of philos- ophy, 36. Ultimate Cause, synonymous with First Cau.se, 42. Unity, love of, an eflicient cau.se of phiIo.«o- phy,47; |>erc. the Platonists, Leibnitz, Kant. I'luto. Plolinus, Aristotle, Augustin, 48-9; a guiding principle of philosophy, 49; a source of error, 50; intln.nee of pr»-con- ceived opinions reducible to, 52; all lan- guages express the mental oinratioiis by words which denote a reUuction of the many to the one, 48. Universities, their principal and proper end, 10. 'TnSarcuTis, 105, 108. Sr^ Substance. Useful, see Utility and Knd.s. Utility of two kinds, — Abi^ohilp and Rela- tive, 2, 16; the nsiful. what .3, 15. .V.'*.': util- ity higher and low.r, 3; compunnivr utility of human sciences, how to lie estinnited. 4, I'l; misapplication of the term um-iuI, 6; true criterion of the utility ol scieiiccji, L' ; utility of sciences dilTrreiitly estimated i:i ancient and modern timeit. 16. Valfhiis Maximtr, 180. A' A MTV, i'<:il. Varro. i|noted. ."IVJ. Vkrri, on pleasure. ,598 718—738 INDEX. Vico, 513. ViETA, 180. Virgil, quoted, 47, 97, 460, 579. Visual Distauce, see Sight. Vital Sense, Setisus Va^s, sj-nonyms of, 377 ; sensations belonging to, 614. See Kant and Leidenfrost. VivEs (Ludovicus), 493, see Language ; on pleasure, 590. Voltaire, his illustration of the relativity of human knowledge, 101 ; first recom- mended the doctrines of Locke to his coun- trymen, 376, 644 Walch, 546. Watts (Dr.), his doctrine of substance, 108. Weiss, 35, .564. Wenzel, 35. Werenfels (S.), quoted, 185. Whately (Archbishop), 82, 475. Whole, different kinds of, 509. Will distinguished from Desire, 128. See Conation and Liberty. Willis, his attribution of mental functions to different parts of the nervous system, 650. Wilson (Prof. John), quoted on Brown's doctrine of Causality, 537. Wit, 620. See Feelings. Wolf, referred to on definition of philoso pliy, 35, 41 ; regarded faculty of knowledge as the fundamental power of mind, 129; quoted on Ueflection, 161; held hypotheisis of Preestablished Harmony, 208; coincides with Leibnitz on the question of the con- tinual consciousness of the mind, 221, 271, 430, see Reproductive Faculty; 447, 513; at- tempted to demonstrate the law of .Suffi- cient Reason from that of Contradiction, 546, 592, see Feelings. Wonder, an auxiliary cause of philosophy, 54; testimonies to its influence, — Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Bacon, Adam Smith, 55; affords an explanation of the order in which objects studied, 56, Young (Dr. John), 376; his general coinci- dence with the doctrines of Dr. Thomas Brown, 381 Young (Dr. Thomas), 372, Zabarella (Jacob), 68, 272; referred to, on Aristotle's doctrine of species, 292,501, 511, Zedler'S Lexikon, 214, 546. Zend, the Eleatio, arguments of against mo- tion, 530, ZWIKGLI, 61. i THE END. €). ■** \ University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. U I I ■^u iin^^iiHllllNllllllllllillllllllllNIIIIIINIIIIIIIIIIII 3 1158 00459 3942 6^/ UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY II AA 000 521 297 2