CHAPTER V.

63This is not strictly correct.Butis compounded of the two prepositions or local particlesbyandout(Ang. Sax.bi utan); and the force of it, in the example given in the text, may be thus paraphrased: “Catiline was a brave man;but(by, near or beside that fact, put another fact, which isout, away, or different from it, namely) Catiline was a wicked man.” This is something more than a simple case of association; the opposition is expressed as well as the addition.—F.

2. It is not necessary for us to do more than exemplify the principal cases in which one Predication is modified by another.

“The space is triangular,ifit is bounded by three straight lines.”

“The space is triangular,becauseit is bounded by three straight lines.”

“The space is bounded by three straight lines,thereforeit is triangular.”

In each of these three propositions, there are two predications; the one of which is dependent on the other. The dependence is that of necessary consequence. The triangularity is the consequence of being bounded by three straight lines.

In order to have names for two Predications thus related, we may call the one theconditioning, the other theconditioned. In the above instances, “The space is bounded by three straight lines,” is theconditioning216predication; “The space is triangular,” is theconditioned.

There are two states of the conditioning predication; one, in which it is contingent; another, in which it is positive. Observe, now, the simple contrivance for marking the dependence of theconditionedupon theconditioningpredication, in all the above cases.

In the first of the examples, “The space is triangular,ifit is bounded by three straight lines,” theconditioningpredication is contingent. The wordif, which is equivalent togive,64prefixed to the conditioning predication, marks it both as the conditioning predication, and as contingent.

64Thatifhas no connection withgive, is manifest from the cognate forms; Goth.jabai, Frisicjef, Ang. Sax.gif, Old Ger.ibu, Lettishja, all meaning primarily “in which or in that case, or supposition.” “Jabai—from which the other Germanic forms are descended—appears to have originally been a dative or instrumental case ofja, analogous totubya= Latintibi: compareibi,ubi, Gr.βίῃφι, Slavonictebje= tibi.”—Garnett.—F.

In the second of the examples, “The space is triangular, because it is bounded by three straight lines,” theconditioningpredication is positive; the wordbecause(having the meaning of,cause be, orcause is)65prefixed to it, marks it as at once the conditioning predication, and also positive. Ifforhad been the217mark instead of because, the artifice would have been still the same, asforhas the meaning ofcause.

65The syllablebe, in “because,” “before,” &c., is the simple prepositionby, Sans.abhi, Gr.επὶ, “near,” “close to.”Thereforeisfor that; in whichforis a preposition, meaning primarily “position in front,” and thence, by metaphor, the relation of motive or cause.—F.

In the third of the examples, “The space is bounded by three straight lines,thereforeit is triangular;” the order of the predications is inverted, theconditioningbeing put first. In this case, therefore, we need a mark to show that the last predication is conditioned, and conditioned by the preceding. This is done by prefixing to it the compound word,therefore, of which the first partthereis equivalent tothat, andforeorformeanscause. The expression in its elementary form being, “The space is bounded by three straight lines; for that, or cause that, the space is triangular.”

In these cases we have examples of what are called, the Suppositive, the Causal, and the Illative conjunctions.

The following are examples of what are called the Disjunctive.

“The ship was well manned;elseit would have been lost.”

“Unlessthe ship had been well manned, it would have been lost.”

In these two examples, the conditioningpredicationsare, “The ship was well manned;” “The ship had been well manned:” theconditionedis, “it would have been lost,” in both instances.

The dependence here, between theconditioningandconditioned, is that of physical consequence. The ship’s not being lost, was the consequence of its being well manned. The contrivance for marking this dependence is akin to that which we have traced in the former instance.

In the first of the two examples, theconditioning218predication stands first. How do I mark that the next isconditioned, and conditioned as a physical consequent? I interpose the wordelse. This is part of an obsolete verb, signifying,to dismiss,to turn out,to take away.66And the sentence is thus resolved: “The ship was well manned,”take away that(take away the cause, the effect is taken away also) “she would have been lost.”

66Elseis the genitive of an obsolete adjective, in Gothicalis, corresponding to Lat.alius; and is analogous with Lat.alias.—F.

Other conjunctions of the disjunctive kind, as they are called, would here have answered the same purpose withelse. “The ship was well manned,otherwise, she would have been lost.”Otherwisehere is precisely of the same import aselse. “The ship was well manned;” that being dismissed, that beingotherthan it was; “it would have been lost.”

“The ship was well manned,orit would have been lost.”Or, in Germanoder, isother. The resolution of this sentence, therefore, is the same as the former.

In the second of the two examples, “Unlessthe ship had been well manned, it would have been lost,” the contrivance is the same, with a mere change of position.Unless, is a word of the same import, rather the same word, aselse.UnlessisPREFIXEDto theconditioningpredication, whereaselseisSUFFIXED; and that is the difference.67The wordexcept, which signifiestake219away, may be substituted forunless. A peculiar application ofif(give) may here also be exemplified.Ifwith the negative, (if not,) has a similar signification with unless, except; “Ifthe ship had not been well manned, &c.”

67Unlessis simplyon less, corresponding to Fr.à moins, and is equivalent toif not.—F.

Let us now pass to another case.

“Althoughthe ship was well manned, it was lost.” The two predications may change places, without change of meaning. “The ship was lost,althoughit was well manned.”

What (as above) was to be marked byelse,unless,if not,except, and so on, was the connexion between a cause and its usual effect; that is, the manning of a ship, and the safety of the ship. What is to be marked in this case is the want of connexion between a cause and its usual effect. It is done by similar means.

Althoughis part of an obsolete verb,to allow,to grant.68The two predications are: “The ship was well manned,” “The ship was lost.” I want to mark between my two predications not only a connexion, that of the antecedence and consequence of the predicated events, but the existence of a consequent differing from that by which the antecedent is usually followed.Although, prefixed to the predication of the antecedent event, gives notice of another predication, that of the consequent, and of a consequent differing from that by which the antecedent might have been220followed:Grantsuch an antecedent, such and not such was the consequent.

68Althoughis a compound pronominal adverb resembling Lat.tamen, and means “(the case being) quite thus (yet).”—F.

The same connection is marked by other conjunctions. “The ship was well manned,neverthelessit was lost.”Nevertheless, meansnot less for that.69“Notwithstandingthe ship was well manned, it was lost.”Notwithstanding, is,not being able to prevent,maugre,in spite of. The resolution of the above sentences is obvious. “The ship was well manned,yetit was lost.”Yetis the verbget, and has here the force ofalthough,grant. “The ship was well manned,yet(or got, that being got, had, granted) it was lost.”70“The ship was well manned,still, it was lost.”Stillis part of an obsolete verb,to put,to fix,to establish. “The ship was well manned,still(that put, that supposed) it was lost.”71

69Neverthelessmeans literally, “not less by (or for) that.” In this compoundtheis not the article, but an adverb, in Ang. Sax.thy, “by that much,” and corresponds to Lat.eoin the expressioneo minus.—F.

70Yetis of pronominal origin like Gr.ἴτι, Ger.jetzt, and has no connection with the verbget.—F.

71Stillseems to be the adjectivestill, quiet, used adverbially, and having the force of “undisturbed, uninterrupted by that.”—F.

A few more cases will exemplify all that is material in the marking power of the conjunctions.

“We study,that, we may be learned.” The connexion here, again, is that of cause and effect. “We study:” “We may be learned,” are the two predications, between which the connexion in question is to221be marked. The demonstrative pronoun performs the service. “We may be learned,thatwe study:” we study; what? to be learned.

“John is more learned than James is eloquent.” The conjunction here is a relative term, and consists of the two words,more than. The two predications are, “John is learned,” “James is eloquent.” The connexion between them is, that they are the two parts of a comparison turning upon the point of greatness in degree. The two wordsmore than, suffice to mark that connexion.Thanis but a mode of spelling and pronouncingthat, which use has appropriated to this particular case. “John is learned, more that (that being the more, the other of course is the less), James is eloquent.”72

72Thanis only another form ofthen, and marks that the one comes after the other, and is therefore inferior.—F.

As, obsolete as a pronoun, only exists as a conjunction. It is a word of the same import withthat. The following will suffice in exemplification of the marking property which it retains. “Virgil wasasgreat a poet as Cicero an orator.” The two predications are, “Virgil was a great poet,” “Cicero was a great orator.” They also are connected as the two parts of a comparison, turning upon the point of equality in degree.As, orthat, suffices to mark that connexion. “Virgil was a great poet,”that(namely great) Cicero was an orator. We shall seeafterwards, in the composition ofRELATIVE TERMS, that every such term consists of two words, or the same word taken twice. The conjunction here is a relative term, and consists222of two words, namely,as, orthat, taken twice. “Virgil was a poet great, that that, an orator was Cicero;” the firstthatmarkinggreat as poet; the secondthat, markinggreat as orator.73

73Asis an oblique case of the demonstrative rootsa, and is equivalent to “in this (degree);” and the nature of the connection is this: Virgil was a poet great in this degree; Cicero was an orator great in this degree; that is, the degree of greatness was the same in both.—F.

223

“It is not easy for the mind to put off those confused notions and prejudices it has imbibed from custom, inadvertency, and common conversation. It requires pains and assiduity to examine its ideas, till it resolves them into those clear and distinct simple ones out of which they are compounded; and to see which, amongst its simple ones, have or have not a necessary connexion and dependence one upon another. Till a man doth this in the primary and original notions of things, he builds upon floating and uncertain principles, and will often find himself at a loss.”—Locke,Hum. Und.b. ii. c. 13. s. 28.

ITwill now be instructive to retrace our steps, to look back upon the space we have passed, and contemplate the progress we have made toward our journey’s end.

We have become acquainted with the elementary feelings of our nature;first, those derived immediately from our bodies, whether by impressions made on the surface of them, or unseen causes operating on them within;secondly, the feelings which, after the above mentioned feelings have ceased, are capable of existing as copies or representatives of them.

We have also observed the manner in which thosesecondaryFeelings, to which we have given the name ofIDEAS, flow, either intogroups, or intotrains. And224we have explored the system of contrivances, to which mankind have had recourse, forMARKINGthose feelings, and the trains of them; so as either to fix the knowledge of them for one’s own use, or to make communication of them to others.

In what has been thus already presented, it will be seen that several expositions of considerable importance are included.

Sensations, and Ideas, are both feelings. When we have a sensation we feel, or have a feeling; when we have an idea we feel, or have a feeling.

Having aSENSATION, and having a feeling, are not two things. The thing is one, the names only are two. I am pricked by a pin. The sensation is one; but I may call it sensation, or a feeling, or a pain, as I please. Now, when, having the sensation, I say I feel the sensation, I only use a tautological expression: the sensation is not one thing, the feeling another; the sensation is the feeling. When, instead of the word feeling, I use the word conscious, I do exactly the same thing, I merely use a tautological expression. To say I feel a sensation, is merely to say I feel a feeling; which is an impropriety of speech. And to say I am conscious of a feeling, is merely to say that I feel it. To have a feeling is to be conscious; and to be conscious is to have a feeling. To be conscious of the prick of the pin, is merely to have the sensation. And though I have these various modes of naming my sensation, by saying, I feel the prick of a pin, I feel the pain of a prick, I have the sensation of a prick, I have the feeling of a prick, I am conscious of the feeling; the thing named in all these various ways is one and the same.

225The same explanation will easily be seen to apply toIDEAS. Though, at present, I have not the sensation, called the prick of a pin, I have a distinct idea of it. The having an idea, and the not having it, are distinguished by the existence or non-existence of a certain feeling. To have an idea, and the feeling of that idea, are not two things; they are one and the same thing. To feel an idea, and to be conscious of that feeling, are not two things; the feeling and the consciousness are but two names for the same thing. In the very word feeling all that is implied in the word Consciousness is involved.

Those philosophers, therefore, who have spoken of Consciousness as a feeling, distinct from all other feelings, committed a mistake, and one, the evil consequences of which have been most important; for, by combining a chimerical ingredient with the elements of thought, they involved their inquiries in confusion and mystery, from the very commencement.

It is easy to see what is the nature of the termsCONSCIOUS, andCONSCIOUSNESS, and what is the marking function which they are destined to perform. It was of great importance, for the purpose of naming, that we should not only have names to distinguish the different classes of our feelings, but also a name applicable equally to all those classes. This purpose is answered by the concrete term Conscious; and the abstract of it, Consciousness. Thus, if we are in any way sentient; that is, have any of the feelings whatsoever of a living creature; the word Conscious is applicable to the feeler, and Consciousness to the feeling: that is to say, the words areGENERICALmarks, under which all the names of the subordinate classes226of the feelings of a sentient creature are included. When I smell a rose, I am conscious; when I have the idea of a fire, I am conscious; when I remember, I am conscious; when I reason, and when I believe, I am conscious; but believing, and being conscious of belief, are not two things, they are the same thing; though this same thing I can name, at one time without the aid of the generical mark, while at another time it suits me to employ the generical mark.7475

74The mistake of Reid in raising Consciousness to a separate faculty has been commented on by Brown, Hamilton, and others. It must be allowed that to feel and to be conscious are not two things but the same thing: that is to say, the use of the term consciousness, whether in common life or in philosophical discussion, does not point to knowing, and exclude feeling.Consciousness is the widest word in our vocabulary. By common consent it embraces everything that “mind” embraces; while one mode of extricating the great problem of Perception from self-contradictions, makes it mean more than mind strictly means. We speak of theobject-consciousnessas our attitude in being cognisant of the extended universe; while our attitude under feeling, and thought, we callsubject-consciousness, or mind.The object-consciousness follows one set of laws, the laws of matter and space, as propounded in Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and so on. The subject-consciousness follows a different set of laws, such as the laws of pleasure and pain, and the association of ideas, treated of in Psychology. We are conscious objectively, in counting the stars, we are conscious subjectively, in feeling oppressed by their number.The subject-consciousness comprises all our feelings and thoughts; it enters into volition; and it makes a part of sensation, in which both attitudes are conjoined. This227consciousness may be faint and limited, or it may be intense and variegated. We may be in a state of pleasure with little or nothing of thought accompanying; we are still properly said to be conscious or under consciousness. But we may add to the mere fact of pleasure, thecognition of the state, as a state of pleasure, and as a state belonging to us at the time. This is not the same thing as before: it is something new superposed upon the previous consciousness. When we take note of the fact that we are pleased, we proceed beyond the bare experience of the present pleasure, to an intellectual act of comparison, assimilation, or classification with past pleasures; we probably introduce the machinery of language to express ourselves as pleased; all this is so muchextraconsciousness. These knowing operations are not involved in mere feeling; we may feel without them. Indeed, if the cognitive powers are brought into very active exercise upon our feelings, as in the self-dissection of the Psychologist, the feelings themselves are apt to subside.It is thus correct to draw a line between feeling, and knowing that we feel; although there is great delicacy in the operation. It may be said, in one sense, that we cannot feel without knowing that we feel, but the assertion is verging on error; for feeling may be accompanied with a minimum of cognitive energy, or as good as none at all; or it may be accompanied with an express application of our knowing powers, which is purely optional on our part, and even hostile to the full development of the feeling as feeling, as pleasure or pain.Reid wanted a name to express the act of scrutinizing or examining the mind, and to correspond with such names as Perception, Observation, for the study of the extended or object universe. He used Consciousness for this purpose; a word that had been probably more applied to our cognitive energies than to our experience of mere feeling in its simplest manifestation. It is not often that “consciousness” is employed as the popular designation of states of feeling as such, states of marked enjoyment or suffering. On the other hand, the word is frequently made use of to designate the act of cognizing or228thinking of our states of feeling; for which, however, self-consciousness is undoubtedly the more proper appellative.Hamilton terms “consciousness” a “condition” of our feelings and mental operations; more correctly it is the operations themselves; the consciousness is not the condition of the feeling, but the feeling itself. More material is the opinion, held by Hamilton in common with most of the German philosophers, that the foundation of all consciousness is knowing; that we feel, only as we know that we feel. He says, “It is evident that every mental phenomenon is either an act of knowledge, or only possible through an act of knowledge: forconsciousness is a knowledge—a phenomenon of cognition.” (“Metaphysics,” Lect xi.) Now although we may not be able to rebut this singular assertion by pointing to a state of feeling such as to entirely exclude knowledge, we may ask, do the two properties, said to be thus implicated, rise and fall in steady concomitance; the more the knowledge, the greater the feeling? The answer must be negative. A favourite doctrine of Hamilton, containing a certain amount of truth, affirms an inverse ratio between knowing and feeling; which it is difficult to reconcile with the present doctrine. A new distinction must be laid down between the kind of knowing that constitutes “feeling,” and the kind of knowing that constitutes “knowing” in the strict sense of knowledge. We may concede to Hamilton that feeling must always be within reach of a cognitive exertion, but it cannot be conceded that an actual cognitive exertion is essential to the manifestation of the feeling. Such exertion unless kept within narrow limits of intensity cools down instead of promoting the emotional state.The facts of the case appear to be best represented, by allowing the state of Feeling to stand on its own independent foundation as a mode of the subject-consciousness, or of mind. There may, and almost always does, go along with it a certain degree of cognitive effort. We can scarcely be under feeling, without performing some function of an intellectual kind; the divisions of the mental energies do not imply that they can exist in absolute separation. The act of discriminating the229degree of feeling,—of pronouncing a pleasure to be greater than, or equal to, some other pleasure,—is properly an intellectual, or cognitive exercise; but this discrimination does not make the feeling. So a feeling cannot exist without impressing the memory in some degree, which is an intellectual function; one may truly affirm that we do not feel unless, immediately afterwards, we remember that we felt. It is an incident or concomitant of feeling to leave an impression behind, but this does not characterize or define the state of feeling. Being an accompaniment or concomitant of an emotional excitement, we may point to memory as a proof of its existence and a criterion of its degree, but we should confuse all the boundaries of mental phenomena, if we treated memory or retentiveness otherwise than as an intellectual property, a property whose sphere is intellect and not feeling.—B.

Consciousness is the widest word in our vocabulary. By common consent it embraces everything that “mind” embraces; while one mode of extricating the great problem of Perception from self-contradictions, makes it mean more than mind strictly means. We speak of theobject-consciousnessas our attitude in being cognisant of the extended universe; while our attitude under feeling, and thought, we callsubject-consciousness, or mind.

The object-consciousness follows one set of laws, the laws of matter and space, as propounded in Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and so on. The subject-consciousness follows a different set of laws, such as the laws of pleasure and pain, and the association of ideas, treated of in Psychology. We are conscious objectively, in counting the stars, we are conscious subjectively, in feeling oppressed by their number.

The subject-consciousness comprises all our feelings and thoughts; it enters into volition; and it makes a part of sensation, in which both attitudes are conjoined. This227consciousness may be faint and limited, or it may be intense and variegated. We may be in a state of pleasure with little or nothing of thought accompanying; we are still properly said to be conscious or under consciousness. But we may add to the mere fact of pleasure, thecognition of the state, as a state of pleasure, and as a state belonging to us at the time. This is not the same thing as before: it is something new superposed upon the previous consciousness. When we take note of the fact that we are pleased, we proceed beyond the bare experience of the present pleasure, to an intellectual act of comparison, assimilation, or classification with past pleasures; we probably introduce the machinery of language to express ourselves as pleased; all this is so muchextraconsciousness. These knowing operations are not involved in mere feeling; we may feel without them. Indeed, if the cognitive powers are brought into very active exercise upon our feelings, as in the self-dissection of the Psychologist, the feelings themselves are apt to subside.

It is thus correct to draw a line between feeling, and knowing that we feel; although there is great delicacy in the operation. It may be said, in one sense, that we cannot feel without knowing that we feel, but the assertion is verging on error; for feeling may be accompanied with a minimum of cognitive energy, or as good as none at all; or it may be accompanied with an express application of our knowing powers, which is purely optional on our part, and even hostile to the full development of the feeling as feeling, as pleasure or pain.

Reid wanted a name to express the act of scrutinizing or examining the mind, and to correspond with such names as Perception, Observation, for the study of the extended or object universe. He used Consciousness for this purpose; a word that had been probably more applied to our cognitive energies than to our experience of mere feeling in its simplest manifestation. It is not often that “consciousness” is employed as the popular designation of states of feeling as such, states of marked enjoyment or suffering. On the other hand, the word is frequently made use of to designate the act of cognizing or228thinking of our states of feeling; for which, however, self-consciousness is undoubtedly the more proper appellative.

Hamilton terms “consciousness” a “condition” of our feelings and mental operations; more correctly it is the operations themselves; the consciousness is not the condition of the feeling, but the feeling itself. More material is the opinion, held by Hamilton in common with most of the German philosophers, that the foundation of all consciousness is knowing; that we feel, only as we know that we feel. He says, “It is evident that every mental phenomenon is either an act of knowledge, or only possible through an act of knowledge: forconsciousness is a knowledge—a phenomenon of cognition.” (“Metaphysics,” Lect xi.) Now although we may not be able to rebut this singular assertion by pointing to a state of feeling such as to entirely exclude knowledge, we may ask, do the two properties, said to be thus implicated, rise and fall in steady concomitance; the more the knowledge, the greater the feeling? The answer must be negative. A favourite doctrine of Hamilton, containing a certain amount of truth, affirms an inverse ratio between knowing and feeling; which it is difficult to reconcile with the present doctrine. A new distinction must be laid down between the kind of knowing that constitutes “feeling,” and the kind of knowing that constitutes “knowing” in the strict sense of knowledge. We may concede to Hamilton that feeling must always be within reach of a cognitive exertion, but it cannot be conceded that an actual cognitive exertion is essential to the manifestation of the feeling. Such exertion unless kept within narrow limits of intensity cools down instead of promoting the emotional state.

The facts of the case appear to be best represented, by allowing the state of Feeling to stand on its own independent foundation as a mode of the subject-consciousness, or of mind. There may, and almost always does, go along with it a certain degree of cognitive effort. We can scarcely be under feeling, without performing some function of an intellectual kind; the divisions of the mental energies do not imply that they can exist in absolute separation. The act of discriminating the229degree of feeling,—of pronouncing a pleasure to be greater than, or equal to, some other pleasure,—is properly an intellectual, or cognitive exercise; but this discrimination does not make the feeling. So a feeling cannot exist without impressing the memory in some degree, which is an intellectual function; one may truly affirm that we do not feel unless, immediately afterwards, we remember that we felt. It is an incident or concomitant of feeling to leave an impression behind, but this does not characterize or define the state of feeling. Being an accompaniment or concomitant of an emotional excitement, we may point to memory as a proof of its existence and a criterion of its degree, but we should confuse all the boundaries of mental phenomena, if we treated memory or retentiveness otherwise than as an intellectual property, a property whose sphere is intellect and not feeling.—B.

75Those psychologists who think that being conscious of a feeling is something different from merely having the feeling, generally give the name Consciousness to the mental act by which we refer the feeling to ourself; or, in other words, regard it in its relation to the series of many feelings, which constitutes our sentient life. Many philosophers have thought that this reference is necessarily involved in the fact of sensation: we cannot, they think, have a feeling, without having the knowledge awakened in us at the same moment, of a Self who feels it. But of this as a primordial fact of our nature, it is impossible to have direct evidence; and a supposition may be made which renders its truth at least questionable. Suppose a being, gifted with sensation but devoid of memory; whose sensations follow one after another, but leave no trace of their existence when they cease. Could this being have any knowledge or notion of a Self? Would he ever say to himself,Ifeel; this sensation ismine? I think not. The notion of a Self is, I apprehend, a consequence of Memory. There is no meaning in the word Ego or I, unless the I of to-day is also the I of yesterday; a permanent element which abides through a succession of feelings, and connects the feeling of each moment with the remembrance of previous feelings. We have, no230doubt, a considerable difficulty in believing that a sentient being can exist without the consciousness of Itself. But this difficulty arises from the irresistible association which we, who possess Memory, form in our early infancy between every one of our feelings and our remembrance of the entire series of feelings of which it forms a part, and consequently between every one of our feelings and our Self. A slight correction, therefore, seems requisite to the doctrine of the author laid down in the present chapter. There is a mental process, over and above the mere having a feeling, to which the word Consciousness is sometimes, and it can hardly be said improperly, applied, viz. the reference of the feeling to our Self. But this process, though separable in thought from the actual feeling, and in all probability not accompanying it in the beginning, is, from a very early period of our existence, inseparably attendant on it, though, like many other mental processes, it often takes place too rapidly to be remembered at the next instant.Other thinkers, or perhaps the same thinkers on other occasions, employ the word Consciousness as almost a synonyme of Attention. We all know that we have a power, partly voluntary, though often acting independently of our will, ofattending(as it is called) to a particular sensation or thought. The essence of Attention is that the sensation or thought is, as it were, magnified, or strengthened: it becomes more intense as a whole, and at the same time more distinct and definite in its various parts, like a visible object when a stronger light is thrown upon it: while all other sensations or thoughts which do or which might present themselves at the same moment are blunted and dimmed, or altogether excluded. This heightening of the feeling we may call, if we please, heightening the consciousness of the feeling; and it may be said that we are made more conscious of the feeling than we were before: but the expression is scarcely correct, for we are not more conscious of the feeling, but are conscious of more feeling.In some cases we are even said to be, by an act of attention, made conscious of a feeling of which we should otherwise have231been unconscious: and there is much difference of opinion as to what it is which really occurs in this case. The point has received some consideration in a formerNote, but there may be advantage in again recalling it to remembrance. It frequently happens (examples of it are abundant in the Analysis) that certain of our sensations, or certain parts of the series of our thoughts, not being sufficiently pleasurable or painful to compel attention, and there being no motive for attending to them voluntarily, pass off without having been attended to; and, not having received that artificial intensification, they are too slight and too fugitive to be remembered. We often have evidence that these sensations or ideas have been in the mind; because, during their short passage, they have called up other ideas by association. A good example is the case of reading from a book, when we must have perceived and recognized the visible letters and syllables, yet we retain a remembrance only of the sense which they conveyed. In such cases many psychologists think that the impressions have passed through the mind without our being conscious of them. But to have feelings unconsciously, to have had them without being aware, is something like a contradiction. All we really know is that we do not remember having had them; whence we reasonably conclude that if we had them, we did not attend to them; and this inattention to our feelings is what seems to be here meant by being unconscious of them. Either we had the sensations or other feelings without attending to them, and therefore immediately forgot them, or we never, in reality, had them. This last has been the opinion of some of the profoundest psychologists. Even in cases in which it is certain that we once had these feelings, and had them with a lively consciousness (as of the letters and syllables when we were only learning to read) yet when through numberless repetitions the process has become so rapid that we no longer remember having those visual sensations, these philosophers think that they are elided,—that we cease to have them at all. The usual impressions are made on our organs by the written characters, and are transmitted to the brain, but these organic states,232they think, pass away without having had time to excite the sensations corresponding to them, the chain of association being kept up by the organic states without need of the sensations. This was apparently the opinion of Hartley; and is distinctly that of Mr. Herbert Spencer. The conflicting suppositions are both consistent with the known facts of our mental nature. Which of them is the true, our present knowledge does not, I think, enable us to decide.The author of the Analysis often insists on the important doctrine that we have many feelings, both of the physical and of the mental class, which, either because they are permanent and unchangeable, or for the contrary reason, that they are extremely fugitive and evanescent, and are at the same time uninteresting to us except for the mental processes they originate, we form the habit of not attending to; and this habit, after a time, grows into an incapacity; we become unable to attend to them, even if we wish. In such cases we are usually not aware that we have had the feelings; yet the author seems to be of opinion that we really have them. He says, for example, in the section on Muscular Sensations (ch. i.sect. vii.) “We know that the air is continually pressing upon our bodies. But the sensation being continual, without any call to attend to it, we lose from habit, the power of doing so. The sensation is as if it did not exist.” Is it not the most reasonable supposition that the sensation does not exist; that the necessary condition of sensation is change; that an unchanging sensation, instead of becoming latent, dwindles in intensity, until it dies away, and ceases to be a sensation? Mr. Bain expresses this mental law by saying, that a necessary condition of Consciousness is change; that we are conscious only of changes of state. I apprehend that change is necessary to consciousness of feeling, only because it is necessary to feeling: when there is no change, there is, not a permanent feeling of which we are unconscious, but no feeling at all.In the concluding chapter of Mr. Bain’s great work, there is an enumeration of the various senses in which the word Consciousness is used. He finds them no fewer than thirteen.—Ed.

Other thinkers, or perhaps the same thinkers on other occasions, employ the word Consciousness as almost a synonyme of Attention. We all know that we have a power, partly voluntary, though often acting independently of our will, ofattending(as it is called) to a particular sensation or thought. The essence of Attention is that the sensation or thought is, as it were, magnified, or strengthened: it becomes more intense as a whole, and at the same time more distinct and definite in its various parts, like a visible object when a stronger light is thrown upon it: while all other sensations or thoughts which do or which might present themselves at the same moment are blunted and dimmed, or altogether excluded. This heightening of the feeling we may call, if we please, heightening the consciousness of the feeling; and it may be said that we are made more conscious of the feeling than we were before: but the expression is scarcely correct, for we are not more conscious of the feeling, but are conscious of more feeling.

In some cases we are even said to be, by an act of attention, made conscious of a feeling of which we should otherwise have231been unconscious: and there is much difference of opinion as to what it is which really occurs in this case. The point has received some consideration in a formerNote, but there may be advantage in again recalling it to remembrance. It frequently happens (examples of it are abundant in the Analysis) that certain of our sensations, or certain parts of the series of our thoughts, not being sufficiently pleasurable or painful to compel attention, and there being no motive for attending to them voluntarily, pass off without having been attended to; and, not having received that artificial intensification, they are too slight and too fugitive to be remembered. We often have evidence that these sensations or ideas have been in the mind; because, during their short passage, they have called up other ideas by association. A good example is the case of reading from a book, when we must have perceived and recognized the visible letters and syllables, yet we retain a remembrance only of the sense which they conveyed. In such cases many psychologists think that the impressions have passed through the mind without our being conscious of them. But to have feelings unconsciously, to have had them without being aware, is something like a contradiction. All we really know is that we do not remember having had them; whence we reasonably conclude that if we had them, we did not attend to them; and this inattention to our feelings is what seems to be here meant by being unconscious of them. Either we had the sensations or other feelings without attending to them, and therefore immediately forgot them, or we never, in reality, had them. This last has been the opinion of some of the profoundest psychologists. Even in cases in which it is certain that we once had these feelings, and had them with a lively consciousness (as of the letters and syllables when we were only learning to read) yet when through numberless repetitions the process has become so rapid that we no longer remember having those visual sensations, these philosophers think that they are elided,—that we cease to have them at all. The usual impressions are made on our organs by the written characters, and are transmitted to the brain, but these organic states,232they think, pass away without having had time to excite the sensations corresponding to them, the chain of association being kept up by the organic states without need of the sensations. This was apparently the opinion of Hartley; and is distinctly that of Mr. Herbert Spencer. The conflicting suppositions are both consistent with the known facts of our mental nature. Which of them is the true, our present knowledge does not, I think, enable us to decide.

The author of the Analysis often insists on the important doctrine that we have many feelings, both of the physical and of the mental class, which, either because they are permanent and unchangeable, or for the contrary reason, that they are extremely fugitive and evanescent, and are at the same time uninteresting to us except for the mental processes they originate, we form the habit of not attending to; and this habit, after a time, grows into an incapacity; we become unable to attend to them, even if we wish. In such cases we are usually not aware that we have had the feelings; yet the author seems to be of opinion that we really have them. He says, for example, in the section on Muscular Sensations (ch. i.sect. vii.) “We know that the air is continually pressing upon our bodies. But the sensation being continual, without any call to attend to it, we lose from habit, the power of doing so. The sensation is as if it did not exist.” Is it not the most reasonable supposition that the sensation does not exist; that the necessary condition of sensation is change; that an unchanging sensation, instead of becoming latent, dwindles in intensity, until it dies away, and ceases to be a sensation? Mr. Bain expresses this mental law by saying, that a necessary condition of Consciousness is change; that we are conscious only of changes of state. I apprehend that change is necessary to consciousness of feeling, only because it is necessary to feeling: when there is no change, there is, not a permanent feeling of which we are unconscious, but no feeling at all.

In the concluding chapter of Mr. Bain’s great work, there is an enumeration of the various senses in which the word Consciousness is used. He finds them no fewer than thirteen.—Ed.

233

“The generalizations of language are already made for us, before we have ourselves begun to generalize; and our mind receives the abstract phrases without any definite analysis, almost as readily as it receives and adopts the simple names of persons and things. The separate co-existing phenomena, and the separate sequences of a long succession of words, which it has been found convenient to comprehend in a single word, are hence, from the constant use of that single word, regarded by the mind almost in the same manner, as if they were only one phenomenon, or one event.”—Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect.By Thomas Brown, M.D.Note M, p. 567.

THEphilosophers, who erectedCONSCIOUSNESSinto what they called a Power of the mind, have bestowed the same rank uponCONCEPTION.

When we have a Sensation, we are not said, in the ordinary use of the word, to Conceive. If burned with the candle, I do not say, “I conceive the pain;” I do not say, if I smelt putrescence, that “I conceive the stench.” It even seems to be not without a sort of impropriety, if the term is ever applied to mark a simple Idea. We should not, in ordinary language, say, “I conceive red,” “I conceive green.” We say, however, “I conceive a horse,” “I conceive a tree,”; I conceive a ship;” we say also, “I conceive an234argument,” “I conceive a plan.” In these examples, which may be taken as a sufficient specimen of the manner in which the term Conception is used, we see that it is applied exclusively to cases of the secondary feelings; to the Idea, not the Sensation; and to the case of compound, not of single ideas. With this use, the etymology of the word very accurately corresponds: I conceive, that is,I take together, a horse; that is, the several ideas, combined under the name horse, and constituting a compound idea. The term conception, we have seen, applies not only to those combinations of ideas, which we call the ideas of external objects, but to those combinations which the mind makes for its own purposes.

It thus appears, that the wordCONCEPTIONis agenericalname, likeCONSCIOUSNESS; but less comprehensive. We call ourselves conscious, when we have any sensation, or any idea. We say that we conceive, only when we have some complex idea. It remains to be inquired, whether by saying we conceive, or have a conception, we mean any thing whatsoever beside having an idea.

If I say, I have the idea of a horse, I can explain distinctly what I mean. I have the ideas of the sensations of sight, of touch, of hearing, of smelling, with which the body and actions of a horse have impressed me; these ideas, all combined, and so closely, that their existence appears simultaneous, and one. This is myIDEAof a horse. If I say, I have aCONCEPTIONof a horse, and am asked to explain what I mean, I give the same account exactly, and I can give no other. MyCONCEPTIONof the horse, is merely my taking together, in one, the simple ideas of the235sensations which constitute my knowledge of the horse; and myIDEAof the horse is the same thing.

We may notice here, however, one of those curious illusions, which the intimate associations of ideas with words, so often, and sometimes so inconveniently, occasion. The term “I conceive,” has the form of an active verb; and withthe form of an active verbTHE IDEA OF ACTIONis so frequently conjoined, that we are rarely able to separate them. By this means, the idea of activeness is often mixed up with other ideas, when it is wholly misplaced and illusive. I use the same form of expression when I say, I dream; as when I say, I study, I argue, I imagine. In these cases the idea of what I call activity is properly included: in the expression I dream, it is not properly included; though the active form of the verb so invariably calls up a certain idea of activity, and so strongly tends to mix it with the other ideas, that in using the term, “I dream,” we seem to consider ourselves as, somehow, agents. Even in using the term, “I die,” we cannot escape the illusion; though the ideas are so highly incongruous. It would be obviously absurd to affirm that we are less active when we say we have an idea, than when we say we have a conception, yet there is constantly a feeling, when we use the phrase “I conceive,” as if we were in some manner active; and no such feeling, when we use the phrase “I have an idea.” The terms, therefore, the concrete “conceive,” and its abstract “conception,” are somewhat inconvenient, and misguiding, as they infuse into the complex ideas to which they are applied, an ingredient which does not belong to them.

The relation which the words,CONSCIOUSNESS, and236CONCEPTION, bear to one another, is now, therefore, apparent. Consciousness is the moregenericalof the two names. Conception is the name of a classincluded underthe name Consciousness. Consciousness applies to sensations, and to ideas, whether simple or complex; to all the feelings, whatsoever they may be, of our sentient nature. Conception applies only to ideas; and to ideas, only in a state of combination. It is a generical name including the several classes of complex ideas.76

76The doctrine of this chapter is as just as it is admirably stated. A conception is nothing whatever but a complex idea, and to conceive is to have a complex idea. But as there must always have been some cause why a second name is used when there is already a first, there is generally some difference in the occasions of their employment: and a recognition of this difference is necessary to the completeness of the exposition. It seems to me that conception and to conceive are phrases appropriated to the case in which the thing conceived is supposed to be something external to my own mind. I am not said to conceive my own thoughts; unless it be in the ease of an invention, or mental creation; and even then, to conceive it, means to imagine it realized, so that it may be presented to myself or others as an external object. To conceive something is to understand what it is; to adapt my complex idea to something presented to me objectively. I am asked to conceive an iceberg: it is not enough that I form to myself some complex idea; it must be a complex idea which shall really resemble an iceberg,i.e., what is called an iceberg by other people. My complex idea must be made up of the elements in my mind which correspond to the elements making up the idea of an iceberg in theirs.This is connected with one of the most powerful and misleading of the illusions of general language. The purposes of general names would not be answered, unless the complex idea237connected with a general name in one person’s mind were composed of essentially the same elements as the idea connected with it in the mind of another. There hence arises a natural illusion, making us feel as if, instead of ideas as numerous as minds, and merely resembling one another, there were one idea, independent of individual minds, and to which it is the business of each to learn to make his private idea correspond. This is the Platonic doctrine of Ideas in all its purity: and as half the speculative world are Platonists without knowing it, hence it also is that in the writings of so many psychologists we read of the conception or the concept of so and so; as if there was a concept of a thing or of a class of things, other than the ideas in individual minds—a concept belonging to everybody, the common inheritance of the human race, but independent of any of the particular minds which conceive it. In reality, however, this common concept is but the sum of the elements which it is requisite for the purposes of discourse that people should agree with one another in including in the complex idea which they associate with a class name. As we shallpresentlysee, these are only a part, and often but a small part, of each person’s complex idea, but they are the part which it is necessary should be the same in all.—Ed.

This is connected with one of the most powerful and misleading of the illusions of general language. The purposes of general names would not be answered, unless the complex idea237connected with a general name in one person’s mind were composed of essentially the same elements as the idea connected with it in the mind of another. There hence arises a natural illusion, making us feel as if, instead of ideas as numerous as minds, and merely resembling one another, there were one idea, independent of individual minds, and to which it is the business of each to learn to make his private idea correspond. This is the Platonic doctrine of Ideas in all its purity: and as half the speculative world are Platonists without knowing it, hence it also is that in the writings of so many psychologists we read of the conception or the concept of so and so; as if there was a concept of a thing or of a class of things, other than the ideas in individual minds—a concept belonging to everybody, the common inheritance of the human race, but independent of any of the particular minds which conceive it. In reality, however, this common concept is but the sum of the elements which it is requisite for the purposes of discourse that people should agree with one another in including in the complex idea which they associate with a class name. As we shallpresentlysee, these are only a part, and often but a small part, of each person’s complex idea, but they are the part which it is necessary should be the same in all.—Ed.

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