mind; the one distinguishing by a purely mental process of reflection,
the elements of his complex feelings, as the other operates on his
material compounds, by processes that are themselves material. Though
the term analysis, however, may be used in reference to both processes,
the mental, as well as the material, since the result of the process
is virtually the same in both, it has been universally employed by
philosophers, in the laws of the mind, without any accurate definition
of the process; and I was careful, therefore, to explain to you the
peculiar meaning, in which it is strictly to be understood in our
science; that you might not extend to the mind and its affections, that
essential divisibility, which is inconsistent with its very nature;
and suppose that, when we speak of complex notions, and of thoughts
and feelings that are united by association with other thoughts and
feelings, we speak of a plurality of separable things. The complex
mental phenomena, as I explained to you, are complex only in relation
to our mode of conceiving them. They are, strictly and truly, as
simple and indivisible states of a substance, which is necessarily in
all its states simple and indivisible--the _results_, rather than the
compounds, of former feelings,--to which, however, they seem to us,
and from the very nature of the feelings themselves, cannot but seem
to us, to bear the same species of relation, which a _whole_ bears
to the parts that compose it. The office of intellectual analysis,
accordingly, in the mode in which I have explained it to you, has
regard to this relation only. It is to trace the various affections
or states of mind that have successively contributed, to form or to
modify any peculiar sentiment or emotion, and to develope the elements,
to which, after tracing this succession, the resulting sentiment or
emotion is felt by us to bear virtually that relation of seeming
comprehensiveness of which I spoke.
If, indeed, our perspicacity were so acute that we could distinguish
immediately _all_ the relations of our thoughts and passions, there
could evidently be no _discovery_ in the science of mind; but, in like
manner, what discovery could there be, in the analysis of matter, if
our senses were so quick and delicate, as to distinguish immediately
all the elements of every compound? It is only slowly that we discover
the composition of the masses without; and we have therefore a science
of chemistry:--It is only slowly that we discover the relations of
complex thought to thought; and we have therefore a science of mental
analysis.
It is to the imperfection of our faculties, then, as forcing us
to guess and explore what is half concealed from us, that we owe
our laborious experiments and reasonings, and consequently all the
science which is the result of these; and the proudest discoveries
which we make may thus, in one point of view, whatever dignity they
may give to a few moments of our life, be considered as proofs and
memorials of our general weakness. If, in its relation to matter,
philosophy be founded, in a very great degree, on the mere badness of
our eyes, which prevents us from distinguishing accurately the minute
changes that are constantly taking place in the bodies around us; we
have seen, in like manner, that, in its relation to the mind, it is
founded chiefly, or perhaps wholly, on the imperfection of our power
of discriminating the _elementary_ feelings, which compose our great
complexities of thought and passion; the various relations of which
are felt by us only on attentive reflection, and are, therefore, in
progressive discovery, slowly added to relations that have before been
traced. In both cases, the analysis, necessary for this purpose, is an
operation of unquestionable difficulty. But it is surely not less so,
in mind, than in matter; nor, when nature exhibits all her wonders to
us, in one case, in objects that are separate from us, and foreign;
and, in the other, in the intimate phenomena of our own consciousness,
can we justly think, that it is of _ourselves_ we know the most.
On the contrary, strange as it may seem, it is of her _distant_
operations, that our knowledge is least imperfect; and we have far less
acquaintance with the sway which she exercises in our own mind, than
with that by which she guides the course of the most remote planet,
in spaces beyond us, which we rather _calculate_ than _conceive_. The
only science, which, by its simplicity and comprehensiveness, seems to
have attained a maturity that leaves little for future inquiry, is not
that which relates immediately to man himself, or to the properties of
the bodies on his own planet, that are ever acting on his perceptive
organs, and essential to his life and enjoyment; but that which relates
to the immense system of the universe, to which the very orb, that
supports all the multitudes of his race, is but an atom of dust, and to
which himself, as an individual, is as nothing.
“Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind,
Describe or fix one movement of his mind?
Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend,
Explain his own beginning or his end?
Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun;
Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule--
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!”[41]
That man should know so much of the _universe_, and so very little of
_himself_, is, indeed, one of the circumstances, which, in the language
of the same poet, most strongly characterize him, as the “jest and
riddle” of that world, of which he is also no less truly “the glory.”
“That the intelligence of any being,” to use the words of D'Alembert,
“should not pass beyond certain limits--that, in one species of beings,
it should be more or less circumscribed, than in another--all this is
not surprising, more than that a blade of grass should be less tall
than a shrub; or a shrub than an oak. But that the _same_ being should
be at once arrested by the narrow circle which nature has traced around
him, and yet constantly reminded, that, beyond these limits, there
are objects which he is never to attain--that he should be able to
reason, till he loses himself, on the existence and nature of these
objects, though condemned to be eternally ignorant of them--that he
should have too little sagacity to _resolve_ an infinity of questions,
which he has yet sagacity enough to _make_--that the principle
within us, which thinks, should ask itself in vain, what it is which
constitutes its thought, and that this thought, which sees so many
things, so _distant_, should yet not be able to see itself, which is
so _near_,--_that self_, which it is notwithstanding always striving
to see and to know--these are contradictions, which, even in the very
pride of our reasoning, cannot fail to surprise and confound us.”
All that remains for us, in that impossibility which nature has imposed
on us of attaining a more intimate knowledge of the essence and
constitution either of mind or of matter, is to attend to the phenomena
which they present, analysing whatever is complex, and tracing the
order of every sequence. By attentive reflection on the phenomena
themselves, and on all the circumstances which precede or follow them,
we shall be able to discover the relations which they mutually bear,
and to distinguish their casual coincidence, or succession, from those
invariable relations which nature has established among them as causes
and effects. This, humble as it may seem, is, as I have said, the
true philosophy of man; because it is all of which man is capable. To
inquire, as may be thought, more deeply into the _essences_ of things,
or the nature of certain supposed bonds by which they are connected, is
to show, not that we have advanced far in the progress of science, but
that we have gone far astray; not that we know _more_ than philosophers
of humbler views and pretensions, but that we know _less_; since it
proves that we are unacquainted with the limits within which nature has
bounded our prospect, and have not attained that prime knowledge, which
consists in knowing how little can be known.
If the philosophy, not of mind only, but of the universe, is to be
found, as Hobbes has boldly said, _within ourselves_,--in the same
manner as the perfect statue is to be found in the rude block of the
quarry, when all the superfluous mass, that adheres to it, has been
removed,--in no respect can it more justly be said to be in our own
minds than in this, that it is only by knowing the true extent, and
consequently the limits, of our intellectual powers, that we can
form any rational system of philosophic investigation. Then, indeed,
Philosophy may be truly said, in his strong figurative language, to be
Human Reason herself, hovering over all created things, and proclaiming
their order, their causes, and effects. “Philosophiam noli credere eam
esse, per quam fiunt lapides philosophici, neque illam quam ostentant
codices metaphysici; sed Rationem Humanum naturalem per omnes res
creatas sedulo volitantem, et de earum ordine, causis, et effectibus,
ea quæ vera sunt renuntiantem. Mentis ergo tuæ, et totius mundi filia
philosophia in te ipso est; nondum fortasse figurata, sed genitori
mundo qualis erat in principio informi similes. Faciendum ergo tibi
est quod faciunt statuarii, qui materiam exculpentes supervacraeum,
imaginem non faciunt sed inveniunt.”[42]
After these remarks on physical inquiry in general, and its particular
application to our own science, I trust that we shall now proceed to
observe, and analyse, and arrange the mental phenomena, with clearer
views, both of the materials on which we have to operate, and of the
nature of the operations which we have to perform. We may consider the
mind as now lying open before us, presenting to us all its phenomena,
but presenting them in _assemblages_, which it is to be our labour to
separate and arrange. In this separation and arrangement, there are
difficulties, I confess, of no slight kind. But, I trust, that you
have the spirit, which delights in overcoming difficulties, and which,
even if its most strenuous exertions should fail, delights in the very
strenuousness of the endeavour. In what admits our analysis, and in
what transcends it, we shall always find much that is truly wonderful
in itself, and deserving of our profoundest admiration; and, even in
the obscurest parts of the great field of mind, though we may see only
dimly, and must, therefore, be cautious in inquiring, and fearful of
pronouncing, we may yet, perhaps, be opening paths that are to lead to
discovery, and, in the very darkness of our search, may perceive some
gleams of that light, which, though now only dawning upon _us_, is to
brighten on the inquirers of other ages.
In proceeding to examine and compare the mental phenomena, the first
circumstance that strikes us, prior to any attempt to arrange them
in classes, is, that the mind which exhibits these is susceptible
of a _variety of feelings_, every new feeling being a change of its
state; and, indeed, it is by such changes alone that it manifests
itself, either in our own consciousness, or in the actions of our
fellow men. If it could exist only in _one everlasting_ state,--such
as now constitutes the feeling of any particular moment,--it is quite
superfluous to say, that it could not _reason_ upon this state,--for
this very reasoning would itself imply the change, which is supposed to
be impossible; and as little could this one unchanged and unchangeable
feeling be an object of reasoning to others, even if there were any
mode of its becoming manifest to them, which there evidently could not
be. It is, perhaps, even not too extravagant an assertion of Hobbes,
who supposes a mind so constituted as to perceive only one colour, and
to perceive this constantly, and affirms, that, in that case, it would
be absurd to say that it had any perception at all, being rather, as
he expresses it, stupified than seeing. “Attonitum esse et fortasse
aspectare eum, sed stupentem dicerem, videre non dicerem; adeo sentire
semper idem, et non sentire ad idem recidunt.”
Mind, then, is capable of existing in _various states_; an enumeration
of the leading classes of which, as I before remarked, is all that
constitutes our definition of it. It is that, we say, which perceives,
remembers, compares, grieves, rejoices, loves, hates; and though
the terms, whatever they may be, that are used by us, in any such
enumeration, may be few, we must not forget that the terms are mere
inventions of our own for the purpose of classification, and, that each
of them comprehends a variety of feelings, that are as truly different
from each other, as the classes themselves are different. _Perception_
is but a single word; yet, when we consider the number of objects that
may act upon our organs of sense, and the number of ways in which
their action, may be combined, so as to produce one compound effect,
different from that which the same objects would produce separately,
or in other forms of combination, how many are the feelings which this
single word denotes!--so many, indeed, that no arithmetical computation
is sufficient to measure their infinity.
Amid all this variety of feelings, with whatever rapidity the changes
may succeed each other, and however opposite they may seem, we have
still the most undoubting belief, that it is the same individual mind,
which is thus affected in various ways. The pleasure, which is felt
at one moment, has indeed little apparent relation to the pain that
was perhaps felt a few moments before; and the knowledge of a subject,
which we possess, after having reflected on it fully, has equally
little resemblance to our state of doubt when we began to inquire, or
the total ignorance and indifference which preceded the first doubt
that we felt. It is the same individual mind, however, which, in all
these instances, is pleased and pained, is ignorant, doubts, reflects,
knows. There is something “changed in all, and yet in all the same,”
which at once constitutes the thoughts and emotions of the hour, and
yet _outlives_ them,--something, which, from the temporary agitations
of passion, rises, unaltered and everlasting, like the pyramid, that
lifts still the same point to heaven, amid the sands and whirlwinds of
the desert.
The consideration of the mind, as one substance, capable of existing
in a variety of states, according as it is variously affected, and
constituting, in these different states, all the complex phenomena
of thought and feeling, necessarily involves the consideration of
_consciousness_, and of _personal identity_. To the examination of
these, accordingly, I now proceed, as essential to all the inquiries
and speculations, in which we are afterwards to be engaged; since,
whatever powers or susceptibilities we may consider as attributes of
the mind, this consideration must always suppose the existence of
certain phenomena, of which we are conscious, and the identity of the
sentient or thinking principle, in which that consciousness resides,
and to which all the varieties of those ever-changing feelings, which
form the subjects of our inquiry, are collectively to be referred.
Our first inquiry, then, is into the nature of
CONSCIOUSNESS.
In the systems of philosophy, which have been most generally prevalent,
especially in this part of the Island, consciousness has always been
classed as one of the intellectual powers of the mind, differing
from its other powers, as these mutually differ from each other. It
is accordingly ranked by Dr Reid, as separate and distinct, in his
Catalogue of the Intellectual Powers; and he says of it, that “it
is an operation of the understanding of its own kind, and cannot
be logically defined. The objects of it are our present pains, our
pleasures, our hopes, our fears, our desires, our doubts, our thoughts
of every kind,--in a word, all the passions, and all the actions and
operations of our own minds, while they are present.” And in various
parts of his works, which it would be needless to quote, he alludes
to its radical difference from the other powers of the mind, as if it
were a point on which there could be no question. To me, however, I
must confess, it appears that this attempt to double, as it were, our
various feelings, by making them not to constitute our consciousness,
but to be the objects of it, as of a distinct intellectual power, is
not a faithful statement of the phenomena of the mind, but is founded,
partly on a confusion of thought, and still more on a confusion of
language. Sensation is not the object of consciousness different from
itself, but a particular sensation is the consciousness of the moment;
as a particular hope, or fear, or grief, or resentment, or simple
remembrance, may be the actual consciousness of the next moment. In
short, if the mind of man, and all the changes which take place in
it, from the 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 the mind, would be distinguishable
in it, forming, indeed, a variety of sensations, and thoughts, and
passions, as momentary states of the mind, but all of them existing
individually, and successively to each other. To suppose the mind
to exist in two different states, in the same moment, is a manifest
absurdity. To the whole series of states of the mind, then, whatever
the individual momentary successive states may be, I give the name of
our _consciousness_,--using that term, not to express any new state
additional to the whole series, (for to that, which is already _the
whole_ nothing can be added, and the mind, as I have already said,
cannot be conceived to exist at once in two different states,) but
merely as a short mode of expressing the wide variety of our feelings;
in the same manner, as I use any other generic word, for expressing
briefly the individual varieties comprehended under it. There are not
sensations, thoughts, passions, and also consciousness, any more than
there is quadruped or animal, as a separate being, to be added to the
wolves, tigers, elephants, and other living creatures, which I include
under those terms.
The fallacy of conceiving consciousness to be something different
from the feeling, which is said to be its object, has arisen, in
a great measure, from the use of the personal pronoun _I_, which
the conviction of our _identity_, during the various feelings, or
temporary consciousnesses of different moments, has led us to employ,
as significant of our permanent _self_, of that being, which is
conscious, and variously conscious, and which continues, after these
feelings have ceased, to be the subject of other consciousness, as
transient as the former. I am conscious of a certain feeling, really
means, however, no more than this--I feel in a certain manner, or, in
other words, my mind exists in that state which constitutes a certain
feeling; the mere existence of that feeling, and not any additional and
distinguishable feeling that is to be termed _consciousness_, being all
which is essential to the state of my mind, at the particular moment
of sensation; for a pleasure, or pain, of which we are not conscious,
is a pleasure or pain, that, in reference to us at least, has no
existence. But when we say, I am conscious of a particular feeling, in
the usual paraphrastic phraseology of our language, which has no mode
of expressing, in a single word, the mere existence of a feeling, we
are apt, from a prejudice of grammar, to separate the sentient I and
the feeling as different,--not different, as they really are, merely
in this respect, that the _feeling_ is one momentary and changeable
state of the permanent substance _I_, that is, capable of existing
also, at other moments, in other states,--but so _radically_ different,
as to justify our classing the feeling, in the relation of an object,
to that sentient principle which we call _I_,--and an object to it,
not in retrospect only, as when the feeling is remembered, or when it
is viewed in relation to other remembered feelings,--but in the very
moment of the primary sensation itself; as if there could truly be two
distinct states of the same mind, at that same moment, one of which
states is to be termed _sensation_, and the other different state of
the same mind to be termed _consciousness_.
To estimate more accurately the effect, which this reference to self
produces, let us imagine a human being to be born with his faculties
perfect as in mature life, and let us suppose a sensation to arise
for the first time in his mind. For the sake of greater simplicity,
let us suppose the sensation to be of a kind as little complex as
possible; such for example, as that which the fragrance of a rose
excites. If, immediately after this first sensation, we imagine the
sentient principle to be extinguished, what are we to call that
feeling, which filled and constituted the brief moment of life? It
was a simple sensation, and nothing more; and if only we say, that
the sensation has existed,--whether we say, or do not say, that the
mind was conscious of the sensation,--we shall convey precisely the
same meaning; the consciousness of the sensation being, in that case,
only a tautological expression of the sensation itself. There will
be, in this first momentary state, no separation of _self_ and the
_sensation_,--no little proposition formed in the mind, I feel, or
I am conscious of a feeling; but the _feeling_ and the _sentient I_
will, for the moment, be the same. It is this simple feeling, and
this alone, which is the whole consciousness of the first moment; and
no reference can be made of this to a _self_, which is independent
of the temporary _consciousness_; because the knowledge of self, as
distinct from the particular feeling, implies the remembrance of
former feelings,--of feelings, which, together with the present, we
ascribe to _one_ thinking principle,--recognizing the _principle_, the
_self_, the _one_, as the _same_, amid all its transient diversities of
consciousness.
Let us now, then, instead of supposing life, as in the former case, to
be extinguished immediately after the first sensation, suppose another
sensation to be excited, as for instance that which is produced by the
sound of a flute. The mind either will be completely absorbed in this
new sensation, without any subsequent remembrance,--in which case the
consciousness of the sensation, as in the case of the fragrance that
preceded it, will be only another more paraphrastic expression of the
simple sensation--or the remembrance of the former feeling will arise.
If the remembrance of the former feeling arise, and the two different
feelings be considered by the mind at once, it will now, by that
irresistible law of our nature, which impresses us with the conviction
of our identity, conceive the two sensations, which it recognizes as
different in themselves, to have yet belonged to the same being,--that
being, to which, when it has the use of language, it gives the name
of _self_, and in relation to which it speaks, as often as it uses
the pronoun _I_.--The notion of _self_, as the lasting subject of
successive transient feelings, being now, and not till now, acquired,
through the remembrance of former sensations or temporary diversities
of consciousness, the mind will often again, when other new sensations
may have arisen, go through a similar process, being not merely
affected with the particular momentary sensation, but remembering
other prior feelings, and identifying it with them, in the general
designation of self. In these circumstances the memory of the past will
often mingle with and modify the present; and now indeed, to form the
verbal proposition, I am conscious of a particular sensation,--since
the very word _I_ implies that this remembrance and identification has
taken place,--may be allowed to express something more than the mere
existence of the momentary sensation: for it expresses also that the
mind, which now exists in the state of this particular sensation, has
formerly existed in a different state. There is a remembrance of former
feelings, and a belief that the present and the past have been states
of one substance. But this belief, or in other words, this remembrance
of former feelings, is so far from being essential to every thought or
sensation, that innumerable feelings every moment arise, without any
such identification with the past. They are _felt_, however, for this
is necessarily implied in their existence; but they exist, as transient
thoughts or sensations only, and the consciousness, which we have of
them, in these circumstances, is nothing more, than the thoughts or
sensations themselves, which could not be thoughts or sensations if
they were not felt.