of equal antiquity, since it corresponds with the very ancient division
of philosophy into the contemplative and the active, is into those
which belong to the _intellectual_ powers, and those which belong to
the _active_ powers. “Philosophia et contemplativa est et activa;
spectat simulque agit.” I must confess, however, that this division of
the mental phenomena, as referable to the intellectual and the active
powers of the mind,--though it has the sanction of very eminent names,
appears to me to be faulty, exactly in the same manner as the former,
which, indeed, it may be considered almost as representing, under a
change of name. Its parts are not opposed to each other, and it does
not include all the phenomena which it should include. Is mere grief,
for example, or mere astonishment, to be referred to our intellectual
or to our active powers? I do not speak of the faculties which they
may or may not call into action; but of the feelings themselves, as
present phenomena or states of the mind. And, in whatsoever manner we
may define the term _active_, is the mind more active, when it merely
desires good and fears evil, when it looks with esteem on virtue,
and with indignation, or disgust, and contempt on vice, than when
it pursues a continued train of reasoning, or fancy, or historical
investigation? when, with Newton, it lays down the laws of planetary
motion, and calculates, in what exact point of the heavens, any one
of the orbs, which move within the immense range of our solar system,
will be found to have its place at any particular moment, one thousand
years hereafter; when, with Shakespeare, it wanders beyond the universe
itself, calling races of beings into existence, which nature never
_knew_, but which nature might almost _own_--or when, with Tacitus, it
enrols slowly, year after year, that dreadful reality of crimes and
sufferings, which even dramatic horror, in all its license of wild
imagination, can scarcely reach--the long unvarying catalogue, of
tyrants,--and executioners,--and victims, that return thanks to the
gods and die,--and accusers rich with their blood, and more mighty,
as more widely hated, amid the multitudes of prostrate slaves, still
looking whether there may not yet have escaped some lingering virtue,
which it may be a merit to destroy, and having scarcely leisure to
feel even the agonies of remorse, in the continued sense of the
precariousness of their own gloomy existence? When it thus records
the warning lessons of the past, or expatiates in fields, which itself
creates, of fairy beauty or sublimity, or comprehends whole moving
worlds within its glance, and calculates and measures infinitude--the
mind is surely active, or there are no moments in which it is so. So
little, indeed, are the intellectual powers opposed to the active,
that it is only when some intellectual energy co-exists with desire,
that the mind is said to be active, even by those who are unaccustomed
to analytical inquiries, or to metaphysical nomenclature. The love
of power, or the love of glory, when there is no opportunity of
intellectual exertion, may, in the common acceptation of the word, be
as passive as tranquillity itself. The passion is active only when,
with intellectual action, it compares means with ends, and different
means with each other, and deliberates, and resolves, and executes.
Chain some revolutionary usurper to the floor of a dungeon, his
ambition may be active still, because he may still be intellectually
busy in planning means of deliverance and vengeance; and, on his bed of
straw, may conquer half the world. But, if we could fetter his reason
and fancy, as we can fetter his limbs, what activity would remain,
though he were still to feel that mere desire of power or glory, which,
though usually followed by intellectual exertion, is itself as prior
to these exertions, all that constitutes ambition, as a passion? There
would, indeed, still be in his mind the awful elements of that force,
which bursts upon the world with conflagration and destruction; but,
though there would be the _thunder_, it would be the thunder sleeping
in its cloud. To _will_, is to act with desire; and, unless in the
production of mere muscular motion, it is only _intellectually_ that we
can act. To class the active powers, therefore, as distinct from the
intellectual, is to class them, as opposed to that, without which, as
active powers, they cannot even exist.
It may, certainly, be contended, that, though the mental phenomena,
usually ranked under this head, are not immediately connected with
action, they may yet deserve this generic distinction, as leading to
action indirectly,--and if they led, in any peculiar sense, to action,
however indirectly, the claim might be allowed. But, even with this
limited meaning, it is impossible to admit the distinction asserted
for them. In what sense, for example, can it be said, that _grief_
and _joy_, which surely are not to be classed under the intellectual
powers of the mind, lead to action even indirectly, more than any other
feelings, or states, in which the mind is capable of existing? We may,
indeed, _act_ when we are joyful or sorrowful, as we may act when we
perceive a present object, or remember the past; but we may also remain
at rest, and remain equally at rest, in the one case, as in the other.
Our intellectual energies, indeed, even in this sense, as indirectly
leading to action, are, in most cases, far more active, than sorrow,
even in its very excess of agony and despair; and, in those cases in
which sorrow _does_ truly lead to action, as when we strive to remedy
the past, the mere regret which constitutes the sorrow, is not so
closely connected with the conduct which we pursue, as the intellectual
states of mind that intervened--the successive judgments, by which we
have compared projects with projects, and chosen at last the plan,
which, in relation to the object in view, has seemed to us, upon the
whole, the most expedient.
If, then, as I cannot but think, the arrangement of the mental
phenomena, as belonging to two classes of powers, the intellectual
and the active, be at once incomplete, and not accurate, even to the
extent to which it reaches, it may be worth while to try at least some
other division, even though there should not be any very great hope of
success. Though we should fail in our endeavour to obtain some more
precise and comprehensive principle of arrangement, there is also some
advantage gained, by viewing objects, according to new circumstances
of agreement or analogy. We see, in this case, what had long-passed
before us unobserved, while we were accustomed only to the order and
nomenclature of a former method; for, when the mind has been habituated
to certain classifications, it is apt, in considering objects, to
give its attention only to those properties which are essential to
the classification, and to overlook, or at least comparatively to
neglect, other properties equally important and essential to the very
nature of the separate substances that are classed, but not included
in the system as characters of generic resemblance. The individual
object, indeed, when its place in any system has been long fixed and
familiar to us, is probably conceived by us less, as an _individual_,
than as one of a class of individuals, that agree in certain respects,
and the frequent consideration of it, as one of a class, must fix
the peculiar relations of the class, more strongly in the mind, and
weaken proportionally the impression of every other quality that is
not so included. A _new_ classification, therefore, which includes,
in its generic character, those neglected qualities, will of course
draw to them attention, which they could not otherwise have obtained;
and, the more various the views are, which we take of the objects of
any science, the juster consequently, because the more equal, will be
the estimate which we form of them. So truly is this the case, that I
am convinced, that no one has ever read over the mere terms of a new
division, in a science, however familiar the science may have been to
him, without learning more than this new division itself, without being
struck with some property or relation, the importance of which he _now_
perceives most clearly, and which he is quite astonished that he should
have overlooked so long before.
I surely need not warn you, after the observations which I made in my
Introductory Lectures, on the Laws and Objects of Physical Inquiry in
General, that every _classification_ has reference only to our mode of
considering objects; and that, amid all the varieties of systems which
our love of novelty, and our love of distinction, or our pure love
of truth and order may introduce, the phenomena themselves, whether
accurately, or inaccurately classed, continue unaltered. The mind is
formed susceptible of certain affections. These states or affections
we may generalize more or less; and, according to our generalization,
may give them more or fewer names. But whatever may be the extent of
our vocabulary, the mind itself,--as independent of these transient
designations, as He who fixed its constitution,--still continues to
exhibit the same unaltered susceptibilities, which it originally
received; as the flowers, which the same divine Author formed, spring
up, in the same manner, observing the same seasons, and spreading to
the sun the same foliage and blossoms, whatever be the system and the
corresponding nomenclature according to which botanists may have agreed
to rank and name their tribes. The great Preserver of nature has not
trusted us, with the dangerous power of altering a single physical law
which He has established, though He has given us unlimited power over
the _language_ which is of our own creation. It is still with us, as it
was with our common sire in the original birthplace of our race. The
Almighty presents to us all the objects that surround us, wherever we
turn our view; but He presents them to us, only that we may give them
names. Their powers and susceptibilities they already possess, and we
cannot alter these, even as they exist in a single atom.
It may, perhaps, seem absurd, even to suppose, that we should think
ourselves able to change, by a few generic words, the properties of
the substances which we have classed; and if the question were put
to us, as to this effect of our language, in any particular case,
there can be no doubt, that we should answer in the negative, and
express astonishment that such a question should have been put. But
the illusion is not the less certain, because we are not aware of
its influence; and, indeed, it could no longer be an illusion, if
we were completely aware of it. It requires, however, only a very
little reflection on what has passed in our own minds, to discover,
that, when we have given a _name_ to any quality, that quality
acquires immediately, in our imagination, a comparative importance,
very different from what it had before; and though nature in itself
be truly unchanged, it is ever after, relatively to our conception,
different. A difference of words is, in this case, more than a mere
verbal difference. Though it be not the expression of a difference
of doctrine, it very speedily becomes so. Hence it is, that the same
warfare, which the rivalries of individual ambition, or the opposite
interests, or supposed opposite interests, of nations have produced, in
the great theatre of civil history, have been produced, in the small
but tumultuous field of science, by the supposed incompatibility of
a few abstract terms; and, indeed, as has been truly said, the sects
of philosophers have combated, with more persevering violence, to
settle what they mean by the constitution of the world, than all the
conquerors of the world have done to render themselves its masters.
Still less, I trust, is it necessary to repeat the warning, already so
often repeated, that you are not to conceive, that any classification
of the states or affections of the mind, as referable to certain
powers or susceptibilities, makes these powers any thing different
and separate from the mind itself, as originally and essentially
susceptible of the various modifications of which these powers are
only a shorter name. And yet what innumerable controversies in
philosophy have arisen, and are still frequently arising, from this
very mistake, strange and absurd as the mistake may seem. No sooner,
for example, were certain affections of the mind classed together,
as belonging to the _will_, and certain others, as belonging to the
_understanding_,--that is to say, no sooner was the mind, existing
in certain _states_, denominated the understanding, and in certain
other states denominated the will,--than the understanding and the
will ceased to be considered as the same individual substance, and
became immediately, as it were, two opposite and contending powers,
in the empire of mind, as distinct, as any two sovereigns, with their
separate nations under their controul; and it became an object of as
fierce contention to determine, whether certain affections of the
mind belonged to the _understanding_, or to the _will_, as, in the
management of political affairs, to determine, whether a disputed
province belonged to one potentate, or to another. Every new diversity
of the faculties of the mind, indeed, converted each faculty into a
_little independent mind_,--as if the original mind were like that
wonderful animal, of which naturalists tell us, that may be cut into an
almost infinite number of parts, each of which becomes a polypus, as
perfect as that from which it was separated. The only difference is,
that those who make us acquainted with this wonderful property of the
_polypus_, acknowledge the divisibility of the parent animal; while
those, who assert the spiritual multiplicity, are at the same time
assertors of the absolute indivisibility of that which they divide.
After these warnings, then, which, I trust, have been almost
superfluous, let us now endeavour to form some classification of the
mental phenomena without considering, whether our arrangement be
similar or dissimilar to that of others. In short, let us forget, as
much as possible, that any prior arrangements have been made, and
think of the phenomena only. It would, indeed, require more than human
vision, to comprehend all these phenomena of the mind, in our gaze at
once,--
“To survey,
Stretch'd out beneath us, all the mazy tracts
Of passion and opinion,--like a waste
Of sands, and flowery lawns, and tangling woods,
Where mortals roam bewilder'd.”
But there is a mode of bringing all this multitude of objects, within
the sphere of our narrow sight, in the same manner, as the expanse of
landscape, over which the eye would be long in wandering,--the plains,
and hills, and woods, and waterfalls,--may be brought, by human art,
within the compass of a mirror, far less than the smallest of the
innumerable objects which it represents.
The process of _gradual generalizing_, by which this reduction is
performed, I have already explained to you. Let us now proceed to avail
ourselves of it.
All the feelings and thoughts of the mind, I have already frequently
repeated, are only the mind itself existing in certain states. To these
successive states our knowledge of the mind, and consequently our
arrangements, which can comprehend only what we know, are necessarily
limited. With this simple word _state_, I use the phrase _affection_ of
mind as synonymous, to express the momentary feeling, whatever it may
be,--with this difference only, that the word _affection_ seems to me
better suited for expressing that momentary feeling, when considered
as an _effect_,--the feeling itself as a state of the mind, and the
relation which any particular state of mind, may bear to the preceding
circumstances, whatever they may be that have induced it. Our _states_
of mind, however, or our _affections_ of mind, are the simplest terms,
which I can use for expressing the whole series of phenomena of the
mind in all their diversity, as existing phenomena, without any mixture
of hypothesis, as to the particular mode in which the successive
changes may be supposed to arise.
When we consider, then, the various states or affections of the mind,
which form this series, one circumstance of difference must strike us,
that some of them arise immediately, in consequence of the presence of
external objects,--and some, as immediately, in consequence of certain
preceding affections of the mind itself. The one set, therefore, are
obviously the result of the laws both of matter and of mind,--implying,
in external objects, a power of affecting the mind, as well as, in the
mind, a susceptibility of being affected by them. The other set result
from the susceptibilities of the mind itself, which has been formed by
its divine Author to exist in certain states, and to exist in these in
a certain relative order of succession. The affections of the one class
arise, because some external object is present;--the affections of the
other class arise, because some previous change in the states of the
mind has taken place.
To illustrate this distinction by example, let us suppose ourselves,
in walking across a lawn, to turn our eyes to a particular _point_, and
to perceive there _an oak_. That is to say, the presence of the oak, or
rather of the light reflected from it, occasions a certain new state of
the mind, which we call a sensation of _vision_, an affection, which
belongs to the mind alone, indeed, but of which we have every reason
to suppose, that the mind, _of itself_, without the presence of light,
would not have been the subject. The peculiar sensation, therefore, is
the result of the presence of the light reflected from the oak; and we
perceive it, because the mind is capable of being affected by external
things. But this affection of the mind, which has an external object
for its immediate cause, is not the only mental change which takes
place. Other changes succeed it, without any other external impression.
We compare the oak with some other tree which we have seen before, and
we are struck with its superior magnificence and beauty;--we imagine
how some scene more familiar to us would appear, if it were adorned
with this tree, and how the scene before us would appear, if it were
stripped of it;--we think of the number of years, which must have
passed, since the _oak_ was an _acorn_;--and we moralize, perhaps, on
the changes, which have taken place, in the little history of ourselves
and our friends, and, still more, on the revolutions of kingdoms,--and
the birth and decay of a whole generation of mankind,--while it has
been silently and regularly advancing to maturity, through the sunshine
and the storm. Of all the variety of states of the mind, which these
processes of thought involve, the only one, which can be ascribed to
an external object as its direct cause, is the primary perception of
the oak; the rest have been the result not immediately of any thing
external, but of preceding states of the mind;--that particular mental
state, which constituted the perception of the oak, being followed
immediately by that different state, which constituted the remembrance
of some tree observed before, and this by that different state which
constituted the comparison of the two; and so successively, through
all the different processes of thought enumerated. The mind, indeed,
could not without the presence of the oak,--that is to say, without
the presence of the light which the oak reflects,--have existed in
the state which constituted the perception of the oak. But as little
could any external object, without this primary mental affection, have
produced immediately, any of those other states of the mind, which
followed the perception. There is, thus, one obvious distinction of the
mental phenomena; as in relation to their causes, external or internal;
and, whatever other terms of subdivision it may be necessary to employ,
we have, at least, _one_ boundary, and know what it is we mean, when we
speak of the external and internal affections of the mind.
The first stage of our generalization, then, has been the reduction
of all the mental phenomena to two definite classes, according as the
causes, or immediate antecedents, of our feelings are themselves mental
or material. Our next stage must be the still further reduction of
these, by some new generalizations of the phenomena of each class.
The former of these classes,--that of our _external_ affections of
the mind,--is, indeed, so very simple, as to require but little
subdivision. The other class, however, that of the internal affections
or states of the mind,--comprehends so large a proportion of the mental
phenomena, and these so various, that, without many subdivisions, it
would be itself of little aid to us in our arrangement.
The first great subdivision, then, which I would form, of the internal
class, is into our _intellectual states of mind_, and our _emotions_.
The latter of these classes comprehends all, or nearly all the mental
states, which have been classed, by others, under the head of active
powers. I prefer, however, the term _emotions_, partly, because I
wish to avoid the phrase _active powers_,--which, I own, appears to
me awkward and ambiguous, as opposed to other powers, which are not
said to be passive; and partly, for reasons before mentioned, because
our intellectual states or energies,--far from being opposed to our
active powers,--are, as we have seen, essential elements of their
activity,--so essential, that, without them, _these_ never could have
had the name of _active_; and because I wish to comprehend, under the
term, various states of the mind, which cannot, with propriety, in
any case, be termed _active_,--such as grief, joy, astonishment,--and
others which have been commonly, though, I think, inaccurately,
ascribed to the intellectual faculties,--such as the feelings of
beauty and sublimity,--feelings, which are certainly much more
analogous to our other emotions,--to our feelings of love or awe,--for
example,--than to our mere remembrances or reasonings, or to any other
states of mind, which can strictly be called intellectual. I speak at
present, it must be remembered, of the mere feelings produced by the
contemplation of beautiful or sublime objects,--not of the judgment,
which we form, of objects, as more or less fit to excite these
feelings; the judgment being truly _intellectual_, like all our other
judgments; but being, at the same time, as distinct from the _feelings_
which it measures, as any other judgment from the external or internal
objects which it compares.
The exact meaning of the term _emotion_, it is difficult to state in
any form of words,--for the same reason which makes it difficult, or
rather impossible, to explain, what we mean by the term thought, or
the terms sweetness or bitterness. What can be more opposite than
pleasure and pain! the real distinction of which is evidently familiar,
not to man only, but to every thing that lives; and yet if we were to
attempt to show, in what their difference consists, or to give a verbal
definition of either, we should find the task to be no easy one. Every
person understands, what is meant by an _emotion_, at least as well,
as he understands what is meant by any intellectual power; or, if he
do not, it can be explained to him, only by stating the number of
feelings to which we give the name, or the circumstances which induce
them. All of them, indeed, agree in _this_ respect, that they imply
peculiar vividness of feeling, with _this_ important circumstance, to
distinguish them from the vivid pleasures and pains of sense,--that
they do not arise immediately from the presence of external objects,
but subsequently to the primary feelings, which we term sensations
or perceptions. Perhaps if any definition of them be possible, they
may be defined to be _vivid feelings_, arising immediately from the
consideration of objects, perceived, or remembered, or imagined, or
from other prior emotions. In some cases,--as in that of the emotion
which beauty excites,--they may succeed so rapidly to the primary
perception, as almost to form a part of it. Yet we find no great
difficulty of analysis, in separating the _pleasing effect_ of beauty,
from the perception of the mere form and colour, and can very readily
imagine the same accurate perception of _these_, without the feeling of
beauty, as we can imagine the same feeling of beauty to accompany the
perception of forms and colours very different.
“Sure the rising sun,
O'er the cerulean convex of the sea,
With equal brightness, and with equal warmth,
Might roll his fiery orb; nor yet the soul
Thus feel her frame expanded, and her powers
Exulting in the splendour she beholds,
Like a young conqueror moving through the pomp
Of some triumphal day. When join'd at eve,
Soft murmuring streams, and gales of gentlest breath,
Melodious Philomela's wakeful strain
Attemper, could not man's discerning ear,
Through all its tones, the sympathy pursue;
Nor yet this breath divine of nameless joy
Steal through his veins, and fan the awaken'd heart,
Mild as the breeze, yet rapturous as the song.”[59]
Our emotions, then, even in the cases in which they seem most directly
to _co-exist_ with perception, are still easily distinguishable from
it; and, in like manner, when they arise from the _intellectual states_
of memory, imagination, comparison, they are equally distinguishable
from what we _remember_, or _imagine_, or _compare_. They form truly
a separate order of the internal affections of the mind,--as distinct
from the intellectual phenomena, as the class, to which they both
belong, is distinguishable from the class of external affections, that
arise immediately from the presence of objects without.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] Instead of “not to dethrone,” the original has “and not to mar.”
[58] Night Thoughts, viii. 595-599.
[59] Pleasures of Imagination, Book III. v. 464-478.
LECTURE XVII.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF MIND.--CLASS I. EXTERNAL
STATES.--INTRODUCTORY.