and will. They, however, merit the same reproach as the zoologists who consider the actions of animals as effects of instinct, and those of man as effects of understanding alone. They attach themselves to generalities, and neglect particulars; they ought, however, to specify the kinds of will as well as those of understanding. For it cannot be the same faculty which makes us love ourselves and our neighbors, which is fond of destroying and of preserving, which feels self-esteem or seeks others' approbation. Moreover, the causes of the different kinds of love and of will, which are taken at one time in a good, at another in a bad acceptation, must be laid open. Many philosophers who consider understanding and will as the fundamental powers of the mind, have conceived particular modes of action in each of them. In understanding they admit perception, conception, memory, judgment, imagination, and attention, -one of the most important of these modified operations; to the will they ascribe sensuality, selfishness, vanity, ambition, and the love of arts and sciences, in proportion as understanding is enlightened and external circumstances modified. All philosophical considerations on the mind hitherto entertained have been general; and whilst the study of the understanding has especially engaged one class of thinkers, another has devoted itself to that of the will, principally as embracing the doctrine of our duties. The proceeding of either was fallacious. They have always taken effects for causes, and confounded modes of action, in quantity or quality, with fundamental faculties. They have also overlooked one of the most important conditions to the exhibition of affective and intellectual powers, viz. the organization of the brain. They considered the functions of the external senses in connexion with organization, but were not aware that all phenomena of mind are subject to the same condition. The first of these classes of philosophers is styled Idealogists, the second Moralists. This separation, and the consequent destruction of that harmony which ought to reign between the two, are to be lamented. Idealogists and moralists differ not only in their pursuits, but each criminates the other, and endeavors to confine him within certain limits. Idealogists deride the studies of Moralists, and these often decry Idealogists as the greatest enemies of mankind. Many ponderous volumes are filled with their several opinions. I shall only consider, in a summary way, the most striking of their particular views, and begin with those of Idealogists. I. Consciousness and Sensation. Speculative philosophers incessantly speak of single consciousness and of there being nothing but consciousness and sensation in animal life. Dr. Reid and others consider consciousness as a separate faculty, and Condillac reduced all phenomena of mind to sensation, so that his philosophy is to mind what alchymy was to matter. Now though it be true, in a general way, that all operations of the mind are accompanied with consciousness, it by no means follows that consciousness of the impressions is one of its fundamental faculties. Consciousness is a general term, and is an effect of the activity of one or several mental faculties. It is identic with mind and exists in all its operations in perception, attention, memory, judgment, imagination, association, sympathy, antipathy, pleasure, pain, in affections and passions. Mind cannot be thought of without consciousness. There are various kinds of consciousness, which are the special faculties of the mind, which may be possessed separately or conjointly, and which must be specified by philosophy. II. Perception. Two important questions present themselves: first, whether all he impressions which produce consciousness or sensation, come from without, through the external senses; and secondly, whether all fundamental powers of the mind are perceptive, or have consciousness of their peculiar and respective impressions, or whether some of them procure impressions, the consciousness of which is only obtained by the medium of other faculties ? The majority of modern philosophers have investigated the perceptions of external impressions only, which they consider as the first and single cause of every varied mental function. The mind, say they, is excited by external impressions, and then performs various intellectual or voluntary acts. Some thinkers, however, have recognised many perceptions as dependent on merely internal impressions. Of this kind are the instinctive dispositions of animals, and all the affective powers of man. Those who would consider this subject in detail, may examine, in the first volume of Phrenology, my ideas on the external senses and on the affective faculties. There it will be seen that I admit two sources of mental activity; one external and the other internal. An answer to the second question is given with more difficulty than to the first. Dr. Reid with some of his predecessors, distinguished between sensation and perception. He understood by the former the consciousness of the mind which immediately follows the impression of an external body on any of our senses; and by perception the reference of the sensation to its external corporeal cause. Certain particles of odorous matter act on the olfactory nerve and produce a peculiar sensation. When this peculiar sensation is referred to an object, for instance a rose, then it is perception. Gall thinks that each external sense and each internal faculty has its peculiar consciousness, perception, memory, judgment, and imagination; in short, that the modes of action are alike in each external sense and in each organ of the brain. To me, however, the individual faculties of the mind do not seem to have the same modes of action; I conceive that the functions of several faculties are confined to the procuring of impressions which are perceived by other faculties. The instinct of alimentativeness and all the fundamental faculties, which I call affective, seem destined only to produce impressions, which accompanied with consciousness are called inclinations, wants, or sentiments. The affective functions are blind and involuntary, and have no know ledge of the objects respectively suited to satisfy their activity; the nerves of hunger do not know aliments; nor circumspection, the object of fear; nor veneration, the object deserving its application, &c. &c. Even supposing the affective powers had an obscure consciousness of their own existence, a point which, by-the-bye, is not proved, it is still certain that the intellectual faculties alone procure clear consciousness. The internal senses of individuality and eventuality, combined with those of comparison and causality, determine the species of both internal and external perceptions. As it is, however, much more difficult to specify the internal than the external sensations, the species of the former have remained almost entirely unknown to philosophers. Thus, perception is an essential constituent in the nature of the intellectual faculties generally, and one of their particular modes of activity; yet it is no special faculty of the mind; it is a mere effect of activity in the perceptive powers. From the preceding considerations, it follows that in my opinion every fundamental faculty of the mind is not perceptive, consequently I make a distinction between perceptive powers and kinds of perception. There are as many sorts of perceptions as fundamental functions, but the intellectual faculties alone seem to be perceptive. It is remarkable that consciousness and perception are not always single, that in the same person they may be healthy with respect to some faculties and diseased with respect to others. There are also cases on record, where persons subject to nervous fits, completely forget what occurs during the paroxysms, when these are over; and remember perfectly during subsequent paroxysms, what has happened during preceding fits. The same phenomenon is related of the state of persons under the influence of animal magnetism. Mr. Combe mentions the fact observed by Dr. Abel in an Irish porter to a warehouse, who forgot when sober, what he had done when drunk, but who, being drunk again, recollected the transactions of his former state of intoxication. On one occasion, being drunk, he had lost a parcel of some value, and in his sober moments could give no account of it. Next time he was intoxicated he recollected that he had left the parcel at a certain house, and there being no address on it, it had remained there safely and was got on his calling for it. It seems that, before recollection can exist, the organs require to be in the same state they were in when the impression was first received. III. Attention. Almost all philosophers speak of attention as a primitive power of the mind, active throughout all its operations, and the basis on which observation and reflection repose. It is attention,' says Helvetius,* 'more or less active, which fixes objects more or less in the memory.' According to Vicq d'Azyr, apes and monkeys are turbulent, because they have no attention. Dr. Reid † makes a distinction between attention and consciousness, calling the first a voluntary, the second an involuntary act; whilst other philosophers, with Locke, confound these two mental phenomena. Dr. Brown confounds attention with desire; he thinks that without desire there can be no attention. To all that has been said upon attention as a faculty of the mind, I reply, that attention, in none of its acceptations, is a single faculty; for if it were, he who possesses it in a particular sense should be able to apply it universally. But how does it happen that an individual, animal or man, pays great attention to one object, and very little or none to another? Sheep never attend to philosophy or theology; and while the squirrel and ringdove see a hare pass with indifference, the fox and eagle eye it with attention. The instinct to live on plants or flesh produces unlike sorts of attention. In the human kind, individuals are influenced in their attention to different objects, even by sex and age little girls prefer dolls, ribands, &c., as playthings; boys like horses, whips, and drums. One man is pleased with philosophic discussion, another with witty * De l'esprit, ch. de l'inegole capacité de l'attention. |