“Simple ideas are produced by the motion of the spirits in one simple canal: when two of these canals disembogue themselves into one, they make what we call a proposition: and when two of these propositional channels empty themselves into a third, they form a syllogism, or a ratiocination. Memory is performed in a distinct apartment of the brain, made up of vessels similar, and like situated to the ideal, propositional, and syllogistical vessels, in the primary parts of the brain. After the same manner, it is easy to explain the other modes of thinking; as also why some people think so wrong and perversely, which proceeds from the bad configuration of those glands. Some, for example, are born without the propositional or syllogistical canals; in others, that reason ill, they are of unequal capacities; in dull fellows, of too great a length, whereby the motion of the spirits is retarded; in trifling geniuses, weak and small; in the over-refining spirits, too much intorted and winding; and so of the rest.”[137]
In examining the system of Condillac, which must certainly be allowed to bear a considerable resemblance to this system, I have instanced the feeling of relation, in comparison, merely as being one of the simplest examples which I could select. I might, with equal reason, have instanced other states of mind; in particular, all the variety of our emotions,—astonishment or desire, for example, which are as little sensations, in the philosophical meaning of the term, as they are fear or sorrow. The feeling of pleasure, in all its degrees of vividness or faintness, is a state of mind very different from that which constitutes desire of the recurrence of its object; for, otherwise, the desire would be itself the very gratification, which it supposes to be absent. It is induced, indeed, by the remembrance of the pleasure; but it is a consequence of the remembrance, not a part of it. It is like that general activity of life, to which amid the mild breathings of spring, the torpid animal awakes, that, in continual winter would have slumbered forever in insensibility,—or, like the bud, which, without warmth and moisture, never could have burst from the leafless stem; but which is still, in itself, something very different from the sunshine and the shower.
It seems to me not improbable, that the error of Condillac, and of the other French metaphysicians, who have adopted his leading doctrine, may have arisen in part, or, at least, may have escaped detection more readily, from the ambiguous signification of the word sentir, which is a verb originally, indeed, and strictly expressive of mere sensation; but applied also, by a sort of metaphorical extension, to our emotions and other affections of mind, that do not originate directly like sensation, in an external cause. Though this mere arbitrary word, however, may be applicable to a variety of feelings, it does not, therefore, follow, that these are all modifications of that small class of feelings, to which the word was, in its primary sense, confined,—any more than from the still wider use, in our language, of the term feeling, as applicable to all the states of the mind, it would follow, that these are all modes of affection of our sense of touch. Still, however, I cannot but think, that, if the term sentir had been of less vague application, a mind, so acute as that of Condillac, could not have failed to discover, in the imaginary proof which he offers of the intellectual transmutations of his simple and universal principles, those unwarrantable assumptions, which, even to humbler minds, seem so obvious, as scarcely to require for the detection of them, many moments' thought.
These observations, I flatter myself, have shown sufficiently the error of the system, which would convert all our feelings into sensations, in some indescribable state of metamorphosis. The system, I confess, appears to me a very striking example of an extreme, into which we are more apt to fall, from the very false notion, that it is characteristic of philosophic genius,—the extreme of excessive simplification,—which is evil, not merely as being false in itself, but, I may remark also, as being productive of the very confusion, to which simplicity is supposed to be adverse. When we think of love, or hate, or fear, or hope, as fundamentally and truly nothing more than affections of external sense, we try to recognize the original sensations of smell, taste, hearing, touch, and sight, which have been transformed into them; but we try in vain to recognize what is essentially different, and lose ourselves, therefore, in the attempt. We perceive every thing, as it were, through a mist, which it is impossible for our vision to penetrate, and we are at least as much perplexed by having only one object to seek amid the multitude, as if we considered all the phenomena of mind, without any classification whatever.
Before closing this slight review of the theory of transformed sensations, I must remark, that, even though it were strictly true, that all the feelings of the mind, if considered simply as feelings of the mind, are mere sensations varied or transformed by some strange internal process, undescribed and indescribable,—still, in conformity with every just principle of philosophizing, it would be necessary to form two classes of these mental phenomena, corresponding with the primary classification which we have made of them. That the mind should begin immediately to exist in a certain state, in consequence of the presence of external objects, so that it would not, at that moment, have existed in that state, but for the presence of the external object, is a proof of one set of laws, which connect mind directly and immediately with matter. That it should afterwards begin to exist in a similar state, without the recurrence of any external cause whatever, in consequence of its own susceptibilities only, is a proof of another set of laws peculiar to the mind itself. The complete difference of the cause, in the two instances, would justify, or rather require a different arrangement of the effect; as, when the same motion of a piece of iron is produced, at one time by impulse, at another by the presence of a magnet, at another by its mere gravity, we consider the motion, though itself the same in velocity and direction, as referable to different physical powers. With the same states of mind variously produced, we should still have to speak of external and internal mental susceptibilities of affection, as, with the same motions of a piece of iron variously produced, we speak of magnetism, impulse, gravitation.
The very celebrated system which I have now been combating,—a system, which, by the universality of transmutation supposed in it, truly deserves the name of intellectual alchymy,—may then be regarded as exemplifying one species of error in arrangement,—the error of a simplification beyond what the phenomena allow. This species of error, in the philosophy of mind, has not prevailed very generally in our country,—by far the more general tendency, especially on this part of the island, being to excessive amplification. Instead of wasting the labour of our analysis on elements that do not admit of any further decomposition, we have given up this labour too soon, and have classed, in many cases, as ultimate principles, what appear to me to be susceptible of still nicer analysis. The phenomena of mind are, accordingly, in the general technical language of the science, referred by us to many powers, which I cannot but think, are not so different as to furnish ground of ultimate distinction, but are truly only varieties of a few more simple powers or susceptibilities.
While I am far from conceiving, therefore, with Condillac and his followers, that all our states of mind are mere sensations modified or transformed, since this belief appears to me to be a mere assumption without even the slightest evidence in our consciousness, I am equally unwilling to admit the variety of powers, of which Dr Reid speaks. In one sense, indeed, the susceptibilities, or powers, which the mind possesses, may be said, with propriety, to be still more numerous,—as numerous as its feelings themselves,—for it must never be forgotten, that what we term classes, are only words of our own invention,—that the feelings which we arrange as belonging to one class, are truly different in themselves, precisely in the same manner as the feelings arranged in different classes are reciprocally different,—that each feeling is, and must be, indicative of a peculiar susceptibility of being affected in that particular manner,—and that the mind has, therefore, truly, as many susceptibilities, as, in various circumstances, it can have different feelings. But still, when we arrange these different phenomena in certain classes, it is an error in classification to give a new name to varieties that can be referred to other parts of the division already made; and it is on this account I object to the unnecessary amplification of our intellectual systems, in arranging the phenomena of mind under so many powers as those of which we are accustomed to speak.
Our various states or affections of the mind, I have already divided into two classes, according to the nature of the circumstances which precede them,—the External and the Internal,—and this latter class into two orders,—our Intellectual States of Mind, and our Emotions. It is with the intellectual phenomena that we are at present concerned; and this order I would arrange under two generic capacities, that appear to me to comprehend or exhaust the phenomena of the order. The whole order, as composed of feelings, which arise immediately, in consequence of certain former feelings of the mind, may be technically termed, in reference to these feelings which have induced them, Suggestions; but, in the suggested feelings themselves, there is one striking difference. If we analyse our trains of intellectual thought exclusively of the Emotions which may coexist or mingle with them, and of sensations that may be accidentally excited by external objects, we shall find them to be composed of two very distinct sets of feelings,—one set of which are mere conceptions or images of the past, that rise, image after image, in regular sequence, but simply in succession, without any feeling of relation necessarily involved,—while the perceptions of relation, in the various objects of our thought, form another set of feelings, of course as various as the relations perceived. Conceptions and relations,—it is with these, and with these alone, that we are intellectually conversant. There is thus an evident ground for the arrangement of the internal suggestions, that form our trains of thought, under two heads, according as the feeling excited directly by some former feeling, may be either a simple conception, in its turn, perhaps, giving place to some other conception as transient; or may be the feeling of a relation which two or more objects of our thought are considered by us as bearing to each other. There is, in short, in the mind, a capacity of association; or as, for reasons afterwards to be stated, I would rather term it,—the capacity of Simple Suggestion,—by which feelings, formerly existing, are revived, in consequence of the mere existence of other feelings, as there is also a capacity of feeling resemblance, difference, proportion, or relation in general, when two or more external objects, or two or more feelings of the mind itself, are considered by us,—which mental capacity in distinction from the former, I would term the capacity of Relative Suggestion; and of these simple and relative suggestions, our whole intellectual trains of thought are composed. As I am no lover of new phrases, when the old can be used without danger of mistake, I would very willingly, substitute for the phrase relative suggestion, the term comparison, which is more familiar, and expresses very nearly the same meaning. But comparison, though it involve the feeling of relation, seems to me also to imply a voluntary seeking for some relation, which is far from necessary to the mere internal suggestion or feeling of the relation itself. The resemblance of two objects strikes me, indeed, when I am studiously comparing them; but it strikes me also, with not less force, on many other occasions, when I had not previously been forming the slightest intentional comparison. I prefer, therefore, a term which is applicable alike to both cases, when a relation is sought, and when it occurs, without any search or desire of finding it.