It is needless to be particular in referring to the specific cases. We have seen what combination of ideas constitutes the case of memory. Individual instances of memory are generalized; these peculiar combinations are viewed as a class; hence the general idea, and general name of the class.
The explanation is obviously the same, in other cases, as Judgment, Reasoning, Belief, Willing. We know what is the particular case of association on which each of these names is bestowed. We know what is the state of consciousness, on each individual occasion of Judging, Reasoning, and so forth. Generalization is performed. The particular instances are viewed as composing a class. The Idea of the class is the Idea of Reflection.[34]
[34] To reflect on any of our feelings or mental acts is more properly identified with attending to the feeling, than, (as stated in the text) with merely having it. The author scarcely 180 recognises this as a difference. He sometimes indeed seems to consider attention as mental repetition; but in his chapter on the Will, we shall find that he [there] identifies attending to a feeling with merely having the feeling. I conceive, on the contrary, (with the great majority of psychologists) that there is an important distinction between the two things; the ignoring of which has led the author into errors. What the distinction is, I have endeavoured to shew in my [note] to the chapter on Consciousness; and the subject will return upon us [hereafter].—Ed.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE INTELLECTUAL AND ACTIVE POWERS OF THE HUMAN MIND.
“It is the greatest triumph of philosophy to refer many, and seemingly very various, phenomena, to one, or a very few, simple principles: and the more simple and evident such a principle is, provided it be truly applicable to all the cases in question, the greater is its value and scientific beauty.”—Elements of Logic, by Dr. Whately, p. 32.
THE Phenomena of Thought have long appeared to be divisible into two great classes; which were distinguished by the names, the one of the Intellectual, the other of the Active, Powers of the Human Mind. In the phenomena which compose the first of those classes, and which we have now pretty completely surveyed, the sensations and ideas are considered merely as existing. In the phenomena which compose the second of the two classes, the sensations and ideas are to be considered as not merely existing, but also as exciting to action.[35]
[35] Instead of “The phenomena of Thought,” substitute the phenomena of Mind, the Subject, or the Subject Consciousness. The use of the word “Thought” seems to justify an opinion held by Hamilton and by the German philosophers, that thought, or the cognitive function is the basis of mind, instead of being co-ordinate with the other leading functions (Feeling and Will.) There is no evidence elsewhere that the author shares this opinion.
The defectiveness of the two-fold classification of the mind, which seems to have descended from Aristotle, and is only in the present generation supplanted by an explicitly worked-out triple division, is especially apparent in the handling of all the succeeding chapters of the present work. The Will, or the activity of the system, is spoken of as set on indiscriminately by “sensations and ideas;” which, as will be seen, is to mix together a number of entirely distinct processes.