It is not correct to class the sensations of the alimentary canal, as a whole, with those that lose their hold of the attention, that become unheeded in themselves, and are valued only as the antecedents of other more pleasurable feelings. The remark is inapplicable to the sensations mainly characterized as pleasure or pain; nothing can be more interesting than a pleasure, except a still greater pleasure. It applies only to those slight irritations that are in themselves nothing, but may be the symptoms or precursors of ill health, or of returning good health.
The author’s doctrine as to our acquiring artificially the habit of not attending to alimentary states, demands a fuller explanation. The usual cause of inattention to impressions is unbroken continuance; in accordance with the universal law 49 of Relativity or Change, we are usually insensible to the contact of our clothing with the skin, except at the moments when we put on or take off any part of it. In walking, and in standing, for a length of time, we are insensible to the body’s weight; on rising from the recumbent position we are rendered in some degree conscious of it. Now as the alimentary sensations—Hunger and Repletion—are intermitted and alternated with other states, they fulfil the chief condition of wakeful consciousness.
The example of the striking of the clock, adduced in the text, brings into operation a different power of the mind, which may go far to counteract the influence of change. Under a very engrossing sensation, or occupation, we become insensible to the stimulation of the senses by other agents. The strain of the mind in some one direction causes a sort of incapacity for going out in any other direction while the strain lasts. This is the explanation of the indifference to the striking of the clock. By the farther influence of habit, inattention to a certain class of impressions may become habitual; as in the power of carrying on mental work in the midst of distracting noises.
The same effect may arise in connection with the alimentary feelings. A person very much engrossed with a subject is unconscious of hunger, and does not feel the pleasures of eating. Should any one be absorbed habitually with some occupation or pursuit, such an one may contract a settled indifference to the recurring phases of alimentary sensation; but this is an extreme and unusual case. Any ordinary degree of interest in the avocations and pursuits of business is compatible with full attention to the feelings of hunger, and of repletion, as well as to the occasional pains and discomforts of indigestion. We do not often choose to contract an indifference to pleasures, and we seldom succeed in acquiring an indifference to pains, although we may have moments of such indifference, under some special engrossment of mind by other things.
It is over-rating the influence of association to make it a 50 chief element in the pleasure of intoxicating stimulants, or in the wretched feelings of diseased digestion. These states are direct results of physical agency, and are the same throughout all stages of life, with many or with few opportunities of being associated with other feelings. They are not the cases favourable for illustrating the power of association, in the important department of the feelings.—B.
CHAPTER II.
IDEAS.
“Hæc in genere sors esse solet humana, ut quid in quovis genere recte aut cogitari aut effici possit sentiant prius quam perspiciant. Laborem autem haud ita levem illum veriti, qui in eo impendendus erat ut, ideas operatione analytica penitus evolventes, quid tandem velint, aut quænam res agatur, sibi ipsis rationem sufficientem reddant, confusis, aut saltem haud satia explicatis rationibus, ratiocinia, et scientiarum adeo systemata superstruere solent communiter, eoque confidentius, quo ejus quam tractant scientiæ fundamentum solidum magis ignorant.”—Schmidt-Phiseldek, Philos. Criticæ Expositio Systematica, t. i. p. 561.
“Pour systematiser une science, c’est-à-dire, pour ramener une suite de phénomènes à leur principe, à un phénomène élémentaire qui engendre successivement tous les autres, il faut saisir leurs rapports, le rapport de génération qui les lie; et pour cela, il est clair qu’il faut commencer par examiner ces différens phénomènes séparément.”—Cousin, Fragm. Philos., p. 8.