The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 11 (of 12)

by William Hazlitt

This account of the origin of every thing that exists in the mind differs from the simplicity of Hobbes’s system, and of the modern philosophy, in supposing that there is another distinct source of ideas, besides sensation, namely, reflection on the operations of our own minds. I confess this addition appears to me to be very awkwardly and inartificially made. For, in the first place, it is obvious to remark that in most at least, if not all the instances enumerated by the author, the operations themselves are the proper and immediate sources of our ideas, not this kind of reflection on them, which seems to be nothing but the repetition or recollection of the first conscious impression, the perception of a perception. For example, Mr. Locke includes among operations of our own minds ‘some sort of passions arising from our ideas,’ i.e. as he explains it, the sense of pleasure and pain. Now it is surely a little preposterous to make, not the original feeling itself, but the after consideration or reflection on that feeling, the source of our idea of pleasure or pain. In this sense, reflection must be the source of all our ideas, whether of external objects, or the operations of our own minds, for in the same sense it may be argued, that the first impression of a sensible object is not the source of the idea we have of it, till the soul comes to reflect on and consider that original impression. But it might be said with equal propriety, that we have one source of ideas, viz., sensation, and another source of ideas, viz. ideas. From the view which Mr. Locke has here taken of the subject, though the passions, or the satisfaction and uneasiness attending certain things are ranked among the operations of the mind, yet it is not quite clear whether we are supposed to have any consciousness of them or not; whether they are not as remote from any thing like perception, as the lifeless objects without us, till coming to be afterwards reflected on and taken notice of by the mind, they furnish the understanding with a new set of ideas. The same reasoning may be applied to the other operations of perception, thinking, &c. for it seems to me that the original act of perceiving or thinking is the source of my idea of those mental operations, just as the first impression of any sensible object is the source of my idea of that object. Not sensation and reflection, therefore, but sensation and the operations of our own minds are more properly the sources of our ideas, that is, these two furnish materials for our reflection. I should not have dwelt so long upon this distinction, which may be thought of little importance in itself, but that I believe it has led to most of the errors of the ‘Essay.’ For in consequence of separating the operations of the mind in a manner from the mind itself, and making them exist only as objects for its contemplation, Mr. Locke has been satisfied with considering those operations as acting upon the mind like external things, not as emanating from it. Thus, by a general formula, all our ideas of every kind are represented as communicated to the mind by something foreign to it, instead of growing out of, and being a part of its own nature and essence.

Secondly, another objection to this division of our ideas into those of sensation and reflection is, that it does not differ in any decisive manner from the more simple statement of Hobbes and others, who derive all our ideas from sensation. For by sensation these writers do not understand merely the external image, but the perception or feeling which accompanies it, and they contend that all our other ideas are continuations, modifications, or different arrangements of the original impressions, produced by objects on the senses. Now there is nothing in the extract above given to disprove this statement: and if so, the original hypothesis will remain in its full force. Indeed Mr. Locke himself does not seem to have made up his mind, whether it were so or not. For though he speaks of the mind as furnishing the understanding with ideas, and with the materials of reason and knowledge, and enumerates and explains the several operations of the mind in comparing, distinguishing, &c. yet he elsewhere speaks of ideas as existing in the understanding like pictures in a gallery, or as if the whole process of the intellect were resolvable into the power of receiving, retaining, carrying, and transposing the gross materials furnished by the senses. In this case, I think the simplest way at once is to make sensation the foundation of all our other ideas and faculties. For my own part, the reason why I cannot assent to this doctrine is, that I believe there is another act or faculty of the mind implied in all our ideas, for which neither sensation nor any of its modes can ever account, and which I shall here proceed to explain.

The principle which I shall attempt to prove is, that ideas are the offspring of the understanding, not of the senses. By a sensation is meant the perception produced by the impression of the several parts of an outward object, each by itself, on the correspondent parts of an organised sentient being: by an idea I mean the conception produced by a number of these together on the same conscious principle. Besides the succession or juxtaposition of different sensible impressions, I suppose that there is a common principle of thought, a superintending faculty, which alone perceives the relations of things, and enables us to comprehend their connexions, forms, and masses. This faculty is properly the understanding, and it is by means of this faculty that man indeed becomes a reasonable soul. What has led more than any thing else to the exclusion of the understanding as a distinct faculty of the mind, and to the principle of resolving the acts of judging, reasoning, &c., into mere association, or succession of ideas, has been the considering ideas themselves, or those particular objects which are marked by one name, or strike at once upon the senses, as simple things. Mr. Locke, it is true, has avoided this error as far as relates to our ideas of substances, but he reckons among simple ideas of the qualities of things several ideas, which are evidently complex, such as extension, figure, motion, and number. Hence, having laid in a certain stock of ideas without the necessity of the understanding, it was thought an easy matter to build up the whole structure of the human mind without it, as we build a house with stones. The method, therefore, which I shall take to establish the point I have in view, will be by showing that there is no one of these simple ideas, or ideas of particular things, which are made the foundation of all the rest, that is not itself an aggregate of many things, or that can subsist a moment but in the understanding. I can conceive of a being endued with the power of sensation, or simple perception, so as to receive the direct impressions of things, and also with memory, so as to retain them for any length of time, as they were severally and unconnectedly presented, yet without the smallest degree of understanding, or without ever having so much as a single thought. The state of such a being would be that of animal life, and something more with the addition of memory, but it would not amount to intellect; which implies, besides actual, living impressions, the power of perceiving their relations to one another, of comparing and contrasting them, and of regarding the different parts of any object as making one whole. Without this ‘discourse of reason,’ this surrounding and forming power, we could never have the idea of a single object, as of a table or a chair, a blade of grass, or a grain of sand. Every one of these includes a certain configuration, hardness, colour, &c., i.e. ideas of different things, received by different senses, which must be put together by the understanding before they can be referred to any particular thing, or considered as one idea. Without this faculty, all our ideas would be necessarily decomposed, and crumbled down into their original elements and fluxional parts. We could assuredly never carry on a chain of reasoning on any subject, for the very links of which this chain must consist would be ground to powder. There would be an infinite divisibility in the impressions of the mind, as well as in the objects of matter. There would be a total want of union, fellowship, and mutual intelligence between them, for each impression must remain absolutely simple and distinct, unknown to, and unconscious of the rest, shut up in the narrow cell of its own individuality. No two of these atomic impressions could ever club together to form even a sensible point, much less should we be able to arrive at any of the larger masses, or nominal descriptions of things. The most that sensation could possibly do for us, would be to furnish us with the ideas of what Mr. Locke calls the simple qualities of objects, as of colour or pressure, though not as a general notion or diffused feeling; for it is certain that no one idea could ever contain more than the tinge of a single ray of light, or the puncture of a single particle of matter. Let us, however, for a moment suppose that the several parts of objects are to be considered as individual things, or ideal units; and then see whether, without the cementing power of the understanding, we shall be able to conceive of them as forming a complete whole, or any one entire object. Thus we may have a notion of the legs and arms of a chair as so many distinct, positive things; but without the power of perceiving them together in their several proportions and situations, we could not have the idea of a chair as one thing, or as a piece of furniture, intended for a particular use. It is the mind (if I may be allowed such an expression) that makes up the idea of the chair, and fits it together: that is in this case the cabinet-maker, who unites the loose, disjointed parts, and makes them one firm and well-compacted object. I might instance to the same purpose a statue. Will any one say, that if the head and limbs and different parts of a fine statue were to be taken asunder, broken in pieces, and strewed about the floor, and first shown to him in that state, he would have the same idea of the beauty, proportions, posture, and effect of the whole, as if he had seen it in its original state? But the idea which such a person might have of the statue in this way would be completeness and harmony itself, compared with any idea which could result from the sensible impression of the several parts. For he might still in fancy piece together the broken, mutilated fragments, prop up the limbs, set the head upon the shoulders, and make out a crazy image of the whole; but without the understanding reacting on the senses, and informing the eye with judgment and knowledge, there would be no possibility whatever of comparing the different impressions received: no one part could have the slightest reference to any other part or to the whole; there would be no principle of cohesion left: we might have an infinite number of microscopic impressions and fractions of ideas, but there being nothing to unite them together, the most perfect grace and symmetry would be only one mass of unmeaning, unconscious confusion. All nature, all objects, all parts of all objects would be equally ‘without form and void.’ The mind alone is formative, to use the expression of a great German writer; or it is that alone which by its pervading and elastic energy unfolds and expands our ideas, that gives order and consistency to them, that assigns to every part its proper place, and fixes it there, and that frames the idea of the whole. Or, in other words, it is the understanding alone that perceives relation, but every object is made up of relation. In short, there is no object or idea which does not consist of a number of parts arranged in a certain manner, but of this arrangement the parts themselves cannot be sensible. To make each part conscious of its relation to the rest is to suppose an infinite number of intellects instead of one; and to say that a knowledge or perception of each part separately, without a reference to the rest, can produce a conception of the whole; that is, that a knowledge where no two impressions are or ever can be compared, can include a comparison between them and many others, is a contradiction and an absurdity.

It may be said perhaps, that not the sensation excited by any of the parts of an object separately, but the sum of our sensations, excited by all the parts, produces our idea of the whole. But it is not possible that in a given number of impressions, where the mind never has perception of more than a single part, there should be contained notwithstanding a view of the whole at once. For as a single part cannot of itself represent the whole object, so neither can this part by being actually joined to others, which by the supposition are never perceived to be joined with it, produce that idea, any more than if those other parts had no existence. If the impression of the parts of an object, absolutely and individually considered, were the same thing as the idea of the object, any number of actual impressions, arranged in any manner whatever, would necessarily be the same object. But this is contrary to all fact. For then a curve line, consisting of the same number of points, would not be distinguishable from a straight one, nor a square from a triangle of the same dimensions, and so on. In a being endued only with a power of sensation, and supposed to be simple and undivided, there could be no room for more than an individual impression at once. Our sensations must always succeed each other. One thought must have completely passed away, before another could supply its place. Our ideas would leave no traces of themselves, like the bubbles that rise and disappear on the water, or the snow that melts as it falls. There would be nothing in their fugitive, momentary existence to bind them together. Ere we could stop to compare any one impression with any other, it would be lost for ever in the dark abyss of time. Nothing could be connected with any thing else, either coexisting with it, or going before or after it. If on the other hand, we suppose any merely sentient being to be extended and compounded, or to be capable of receiving more than one impression at once, we shall yet gain little by it. Such a sentient being will be nothing but a number of distinct sentient beings. For as in the former instance, no two impressions could co-exist together, so in the latter, though they existed together, there could be no sort of communication between them. They would be absolutely cut off from and exclusive of each other. The mind in attending to any one must be wholly absorbed by it, and insensible of the rest. Our sensations would to every rational purpose be placed as completely out of the sphere of each other’s consciousness, as if they were parcel of another intellect, or floated in the region of the moon. That any number of detached, unconnected, actual sensations, impressed on different sentient beings, would not of themselves imply a conception of any one entire object is what every one is ready to grant:—it would be equally clear, that this idea could not arise from the impression of the different parts of an object on the different parts of the same organized, extended, sentient substance, but that in this case we involuntarily transfer our own consciousness to a being incapable of it, and identify these distinct sensible impressions in the same common intellect.

It is strange that Mr. Locke should rank among simple ideas that of number, which he defines to be the idea of unity repeated. But how this idea of successive or distinct units can ever give the idea of repetition unless the former instances are borne in mind, I cannot conceive. There might be a transition from one unit to another, but no addition or aggregate formed. As well might we suppose that a body of an inch diameter by shifting from place to place might enlarge its dimensions to a foot or a mile, as that a succession of units, perceived separately, should produce the complex idea of number. The natural fool that Mr. Hobbes speaks of, may be supposed to observe every stroke of the clock, and nod to it, or say one, one, one: but he could never know what hour it strikes, according to Mr. Hobbes, without the use of those names of order, one, two, three, &c. nor according to my notion, without the help of that orderly understanding which first invented those names, and comprehends their meaning. On the material hypothesis, the mind can have but one idea at a time, and the idea of number could never enter into it.

Though Mr. Locke constantly supposes the mind to perceive relations, and explains its operations in reasoning, comparing, &c. on this principle, there is but one place in his work, in which he seems to have been upon the point of discovering that this principle is at the bottom of all our ideas whatever. He says, in the beginning of his chapter on Power, which he classes among simple ideas, and which in my opinion has a much more simple source than that which he assigns to it,—‘I confess power includes in it some kind of relation (a relation to action or change), as indeed which of our ideas, of what kind soever, when attentively considered, does not? For our ideas of extension, duration, and number, do they not all contain in them a secret relation of the parts? Figure and motion have something relative in them much more visibly: and sensible qualities, as colours and smells, what are they but the powers of different bodies in relation to our perception? and if considered in the things themselves, do they not depend on the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of the parts? All which include some kind of relation in them. Our idea therefore of power I think may well have a place amongst other simple ideas, and be considered as one of them, being one of those that make a principal ingredient in our complex ideas of substances.’—Essay, vol. i. p. 234. That is to say, in other words, the idea of power, which is confessedly complex according to Mr. Locke, as depending on the changes we observe produced in one thing by another, is to pass for a simple idea, because it has as good a right to this denomination as other complex ideas, which are usually classed as simple ones. It is thus that the inquiring mind seems to be always hovering on the brink of truth, but that timidity or indolence, or prejudice, which is both combined, makes us shrink back, unwilling to trust ourselves to the fathomless abyss.

I have thus endeavoured to give some account of what I mean by the understanding, as the principle which is the foundation not only of judgment, reason, choice, and deliberate action, but is included in every idea of the mind, or conception even of sensible objects. I am aware that what I have said may be looked upon as rhapsody and extravagance by the strictest sect of those who are called philosophers. The understanding has been set aside as an awkward incumbrance, since it was conceived practicable to carry on the whole business of thought and reason by a succession of external images and sensible points. The fine network of the mind itself, the cords that bind and hold our scattered perceptions together, and form the means of communication between them, are dissolved and vanish before the clear light of modern metaphysics, as the gossamer is dissipated by the sun. The adepts in this system smile at the contradictions involved in the supposition of perceiving the relations between different things, and say that this implies the absurdity that the mind may have two ideas at once, which is with them impossible. Now I shall only contend that if the mind cannot have two ideas at the same time, it can never have any, since all the ideas we know of consist of more than one: and though the consciousness we have of attending to different objects at once, when we compare, judge, reason, will, &c., has been resolved into a deception of the mind in mistaking a rapid succession of objects for one general impression, yet it will hardly be pretended that we deceive ourselves in thinking we have any ideas at all. Mr. Horne Tooke, who is certainly one of the ablest commentators on the doctrines of that school, says that it is as absurd to talk of a complex idea as of a complex star, meaning that our ideas are as perfectly distinct from, and have as little to do with one another, as the stars that compose a constellation. Other writers, to avoid the seeming contradiction of supposing the mind to divide its attention between different objects, have suggested the instant of its passing from one to the other as the true point of comparison between them; or that the time when it had an idea of both together, was the time when it had an idea of neither. As it was evident that while the mind was entirely taken up with one idea, it could not have any knowledge of another which did not yet exist, or had passed away, and as both impressions cannot be supposed to co-exist in the same conscious understanding (for on this system there is no such faculty), this short, precious interval, this moment of leisure from both, this lucky vacancy of thought, is pitched upon as that in which the mind performs all its functions, and contemplates its various ideas in their absence, as from some vantage ground the traveller stops to survey the country on both sides of him. To such absurdities are ingenious men driven by setting up argument against fact, and denying the most obvious truths for which they cannot account, like the sophist who denied the existence of motion, because he could not understand its nature. It might be deemed a sufficient answer to those who build systems and lay down formal propositions on the principle that the mind can comprehend but one idea at a time, to say that they consequently can have no meaning in what they write, since when they begin a sentence they cannot have the least idea of what will be the end of it, and by the time they get to the end of it must totally forget the beginning. ‘Peace to all such!’

To show, however, that I am not quite singular in my notions on this subject of consciousness, and to remove, as I think, every shadow of doubt upon it, I beg leave to refer my readers to two passages, the one in Rousseau, and the other in Abraham Tucker, in support of the almost obsolete prejudice which I have here endeavoured to defend. The one is an argument to prove that judgment and sensation are not the same, in the Vicar’s profession of faith in ‘Emilius,’ and the other is the chapter on the independent existence of mind in the ‘Light of Nature Pursued.’

The passage in Rousseau seems evidently to have been intended as an answer to the maxim of Helvetius that to feel is to judge, and to his reasoning on this maxim, which is as follows:—

‘The question being reduced within these limits, I shall examine at present whether the act of the mind in judging is any thing more than a sensation. When I judge of the size or colour of the objects around me, it is evident that the judgment formed of the different impressions, which these objects make upon my senses, is properly only a sensation: that I may say indiscriminately, either I judge, or I feel, that of two objects, the one which I call a yard makes upon me a different impression from another which I call a foot: that the colour called red, produces a different effect upon the sight from that which I call yellow; and I conclude that in this case to judge is only to feel or perceive by the senses. But it may be said, let us suppose that any one desires to know whether strength of body is preferable to mere bulk; are we certain that we can decide this point by means of the senses alone? Most undoubtedly, I reply: for in order to my coming to a decision on the subject, my memory must first retrace to me successively the different situations in which I may happen most frequently to find myself in the course of my life. In this case, then, to judge is to see that in these different situations strength will be oftener an advantage to me than size. But it may be retorted, when the question is to decide whether in a king justice is preferable to mercy, is it conceivable that the conclusion here formed depends entirely on sensation? The affirmative has undoubtedly at first sight the air of a paradox: nevertheless, in order to establish its truth, we will presuppose in any one a knowledge of what is meant by good and evil, and also of the principle that one action is worse than another, according as it is more injurious to the well-being of society. On this supposition, what method ought the orator or poet to take, in order to show most clearly that justice, preferable in a king to mercy, preserves the greatest number of citizens to the state?