And now let us close Mr. Mill's book, and, introverting our mental gaze, interrogate consciousness, the verdict of which, even Mr. Mill assures us, is admitted on all hands to be a decision without appeal. [238]
[Footnote 235: ][ (return) ] "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 254.
[Footnote 236: ][ (return) ] "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 259.
[Footnote 237: ][ (return) ] Westminster Review, July, 1835 (American edition), p. 3.
[Footnote 238: ][ (return) ] "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 161.
1. We have an ineradicable, and, as it would seem, an intuitive faith in the real existence of an external world distinct from our sensations, and also of a personal self, which we call "I," "myself," as distinct from "my sensations," and "my feelings." We find, also, that this is confessedly the common belief of mankind. There have been a few philosophers who have affected to treat this belief as a "mere prejudice," an "illusion;" but they have never been able, practically, so to regard and treat it. Their language, just as plainly as the language of the common people, betrays their instinctive faith in an outer world, and proves their utter inability to emancipate themselves from this "prejudice," if such it may please them to call it. In view of this acknowledged fact, we ask--Does the term "permanent possibility of sensations" exhaust all that is contained in this conception of an external world? This evening I remember that at noonday I beheld the sun, and experienced a sensation of warmth whilst exposing myself to his rays; and I expect that to-morrow, under the same conditions, I shall experience the same sensations. I now remember that last evening I extinguished my light and attempted to leave my study, but, coming in contact with the closed door, experienced a sense of resistance to my muscular effort, by a solid and extended body exterior to myself; and I expect that this evening, under the same circumstances, I shall experience the same sensations. Now, does a belief in "a permanent possibility of sensations" explain all these experiences? does it account for that immediate knowledge of an external object which I had on looking at the sun, or that presentative knowledge of resistance and extension, and of an extended, resisting substance, I had when in contact with the door of my study? Mr. Mill very confidently affirms that this belief includes all; and this phrase expresses all the meaning attached to extended "matter" and resisting "substance" by the common world. [239] We as confidently affirm that it does no such thing; and as "the common world" must be supposed to understand the language of consciousness as well as the philosopher, we are perfectly willing to leave the decision of that question to the common consciousness of our race. If all men do not believe in a permanent reality--a substance which is external to themselves, a substance which offers resistance to their muscular effort, and which produces in them the sensations of solidity, extension, resistance, etc.--they believe nothing and know nothing at all about the matter.
[Footnote 239: ][ (return) ] "Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy," vol. i. p. 243.
Still less does the phrase "a permanent possibility of feelings" exhaust all our conception of a personal self. Recurring to the experiences of yesterday, I remember the feelings I experienced on beholding the sun, and also on pressing against the closed door, and I confidently expect the recurrence, under the same circumstances, of the same feelings. Does the belief in "a permanent possibility of feelings" explain the act of memory by which I recall the past event, and the act of prevision by which I anticipate the recurrence of the like experience in the future? Who or what is the "I" that remembers and the "I" that anticipates? The "ego," the personal mind, is, according to Mill, a mere "series of feelings," or, more correctly, a flash of "present feelings" on "a background of possibilities of present feelings." [240] If, then, there be no permanent substance or reality which is the subject of the present feeling, which receives and retains the impress of the past feeling, and which anticipates the recurrence of like feelings in the future, how can the past be recalled, how distinguished from the present? and how, without a knowledge of the past as distinguished from the present, can the future be forecast? Mr. Mill feels the pressure of this difficulty, and frankly acknowledges it. He admits that, on the hypothesis that mind is simply "a series of feelings," the phenomena of memory and expectation are "inexplicable" and "incomprehensible." [241] He is, therefore, under the necessity of completing his definition of mind by adding that it is a series of feelings which "is aware of itself as a series;" and, still further, of supplementing this definition by the conjecture that "something which has ceased to exist, or is not yet in existence, can still, in a manner, be present." [242] Now he who can understand how a series of feelings can flow on in time, and from moment to moment drop out of the present into non-existence, and yet be present and conscious of itself as a series, may be accorded the honor of understanding Mr. Mill's definition of mind or self, and may be permitted to rank himself as a distinguished disciple of the Idealist school; for ourselves, we acknowledge we are destitute of the capacity to do the one, and of all ambition to be the other. And he who can conceive how the past feeling of yesterday and the possible feeling of to-morrow can be in any manner present to-day; or, in other words, how any thing which has ceased to exist, or which never had an existence, can now exist, may be permitted to believe that a thing can be and not be at the same moment, that a part is greater than the whole, and that two and two make five; but we are not ashamed to confess our inability to believe a contradiction. To our understanding, "possibilities of feeling" are not actualities. They may or may not be realized, and until realized in consciousness, they have no real being. If there be no other background of mental phenomena save mere "possibilities of feeling," then present feelings are the only existences, the only reality, and a loss of immediate consciousness, as in narcosis and coma, is the loss of all personality, all self-hood, and of all real being.
[Footnote 240: ][ (return) ] "Exam. of Hamilton," vol. i. p. 260.
[Footnote 241: ][ (return) ] Ibid, p. 262.