We seek by no means to discredit this point of view. The task that we have set ourselves is simply to show why and to what purpose for the greatest part of our life we occupy this point of view, and why and for what purpose we are provisorily obliged to abandon it. No point of view has an absolute permanent validity. Each has an importance but for some one given end.
ERNST MACH.
THE ORIGIN OF MIND.
#Given facts and deduced facts.#
We must distinguish between two kinds of facts; viz., given facts or data, and deduced facts or inferences. With regard to the facts of soul-life we recognise that the former class, that of given facts, necessarily consists of states of consciousness only; they are feelings of any description, varying greatly in their nature. They are different in the rhythmical forms of their vibrations, in their intensity, and in their distinctness. The latter class, that of inferences, is deduced from the former, and serves no other purpose than that of explanation. This class is mostly representative of external facts, and knowledge of external facts exists only in so far as external facts are represented in deduced facts. What a thinking being would call external facts is nothing but the contents of certain deduced facts.
Deduced facts, and among them the conception of external facts (wherever they exist), have been produced by the effort of accounting for given facts—viz., the elementary data of consciousness and their relations. Deduced facts are the interpretation of given facts. They are, so to say, conjectures concerning their causes as well as their interconnections.
#Definition of mind.#
The organised totality of deduced facts, as it is developed in feeling substance, is called mind. Feelings are the condition of mind. From feelings alone mind can grow. But there is a difference between feelings and mind. Feelings develop into mind, they grow to be mind by being interpreted, by becoming representative. Representative feelings are mind. Accordingly, we characterise mind as the representativeness of feelings.
#The growth of mind.#
Although deduced facts are an interpretation of given facts, this "interpretation" is not expressly designed. These inferences from given facts are not invented with a premeditated purpose; they are not constructed with foresight or intention. Deduced facts grow naturally and spontaneously from given facts, which are the elements of sense-activity. There is not an agent that oversees their fabrication; there is not a devising "subject" that surmises the existence of external facts and thus matures their conception into deduced facts. Deduced facts are rather the natural product of a certain group of given facts. Deduced facts issue from a co-operation of a number of feelings. They are the result of an organisation of certain repeated sense-impressions which produce a disposition not only to receive sense-impressions of the same kind, but also to react upon them in a certain way. Mind is not the factor that organised the given facts of mere sense-impressions so that they became representations. There was no mind as long as feelings remained unorganised. Feelings acquire meaning; and as soon as they have acquired meaning they are what we call "deduced facts," representations—especially representations of external facts. Deduced facts are the elements of mind; and mind is not their root, but their fruit.