Chapter XI: Part 11

Such is the doctrine of a philosopher, whose intellectual excellence was unquestionably of the highest rank, and whose powers might be considered as entitling him to exemption, at least, from those _gross_ errors which far weaker understandings are capable of discovering, if even this humble relative privilege had not been too great for man. He contends, that our remembrance of having done a certain action, is not merely to us, the rememberers, the _evidence_ by which we believe that we were the persons who did it, but is the very circumstance that makes us _personally_ to have done it,--a doctrine, which, if the word _person_ were to be understood in the slightest degree in its common acceptation, would involve, as has been justly said, an absurdity as great as if it had been affirmed, that our belief of the creation of the world actually made it to have been created.

If we could suppose Mr Locke to have never thought on the subject of personal identity, till this strange doctrine, and its consequences, were stated to him by another, it may almost be taken for granted, that he would not have failed instantly to discover its absurdity, as a mere verbal paradox; and, yet, after much reflection on the subject, he does not perceive that very absurdity, which he would have discovered, but _for reflection_. Such is the strange nature of our intellectual constitution. The very functions, that, in their daily and hourly exercise, save us from innumerable errors, sometimes lead us into errors, which, but for them, we might have avoided. The philosopher is like a well armed and practised warrior, who, in his helmet and coat of mail, goes to the combat with surer means of victory, than the ill disciplined and defenceless mob around him, but who may yet sometimes fall where others would have stood, unable to rise and extricate himself, from the incumbrance of that very armour, to which he has owed the conquests of many other fields.

What, then, may we conceive to have been the nature of the illusion, which could lead a mind like that of Mr Locke, to admit, _after_ reflection, an absurd paradox, and all its absurd consequences, which, _before_ reflection, he would have rejected?

It is to be traced chiefly, I conceive, to a source which is certainly the most abundant source of error in the writings and silent reflections of philosophers, especially of those who are gifted with originality of thought,--the ambiguity of the language they use, when they retain a word with one meaning, which is generally understood in a different sense; the common meaning, in the course of their speculations, often mingling insensibly with their own, and thus producing a sort of confusion, which incapacitates them from perceiving the precise consequences of either. Mr Locke gives his own definition of the word person, as comprised in the very consciousness which he supposes to be all that is essential to personal identity; or at least he speaks of consciousness so vaguely and indefinitely, as to allow this meaning of his definition to be present to his own mind, as often as he thought of personality. “To find,” he says, “wherein personal identity consists, we must consider what _person_ stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places, which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking.”[53]

Having once given this definition of a person, there can be no question, that personal identity, in _his_ sense, is wherever _consciousness_ is, and only where consciousness is. But this is true of a person, only as defined by him; and, if strictly analysed, means nothing more, than that consciousness is wherever consciousness is,--a doctrine, on which, certainly, he could not have thought it worth his while to give any very long commentary. It appears more important however, even to himself, and worthy of the long commentary which he has given it, because, in truth, he cannot refrain from still keeping, in his own mind, some obscure impression of the more common meaning of the term, and extending to a _person_, as thus commonly understood, what is true only of a person, as defined by him. It is as if some whimsical naturalist should give a definition of the word _animal_, exclusive of every winged creature, and should then think that he was propounding a very notable and subtile paradox, in affirming that no animal is capable of rising for a few minutes above the surface of the earth. It would be a paradox, only inasmuch as it might suggest to those who heard it, a meaning _different_ from that of the definition; and, but for this misconception, which the author of it himself might share, would be so insignificant a truism, as not to deserve even the humblest of all praise, that of amusing absurdity.

When, in such cases as this, we discover that singular inconsistency, which is to be found even in the very _excellence_ of every thing that is _human_,--the perspicacity which sees, at an immeasurable distance, in the field of inquiry, what no other eye has seen, and which yet, in the very objects which it has grasped, is unable to distinguish what is visible to common eyes, are we to lament the imperfection of our mental constitution, which leaves us liable to such error? Or, as in other instances, in which, from our incapacity of judging rightly, we are tempted at first to regret the present arrangement of things, are we not rather to rejoice that we are so constituted by nature? if man had not been formed to _err_, in the same manner as he is formed to reason, and to know, that perfect system of faculties, which excluded error, must have rendered his discernment too quick, not to seize instantly innumerable truths, the gradual discovery of which, by the exercise of his present more limited faculties, has been sufficient to give glory and happiness to whole ages of philosophical inquiry. If, indeed, the field had been absolutely boundless, he might still have continued to advance, as at present, though with more gigantic step, and more searching vision, and found no termination to his unlimited career. But the truths which relate to us physically, on this bounded scene of things in which we are placed, numerous as they are, are still in some measure finite, like that scene itself; and the too rapid discoveries, therefore, of a few generations, as to the most important properties of things, would have left little more for the generations which were to follow, than the dull and spiritless task of learning what others had previously learned, or of teaching what themselves had been taught.

Philosophy is not the mere _passive possession_ of knowledge; it is, in a much more important respect, the active exercise of acquiring it. We may truly apply to it what Pascal says of the conduct of life in general. “We think,” says he, “that we are seeking _repose_, and all which we are seeking is _agitation_.” In like manner, we think that it is _truth_ itself which we seek, when the happiness which we are to feel most strongly, is in the mere search; and all that would be necessary, in many cases, to make the object of it appear indifferent, would be to put it fairly within our grasp.

“Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height;
But all the pleasure of the game,
Is afar off to view the flight.”

What little value do we set on discoveries that have been long familiar to us, though their own essential value must still continue the same. Even on the whole mass of knowledge, that has been gradually and slowly transmitted to us, we reflect with little interest, unless as it may lead to something yet unknown; and the result of a single new experiment, which bears no proportion to the mass to which it is added, will yet be sufficient to rouse and delight every philosopher in Europe. It is a very shrewd remark of a French writer, in reference to the torpor, which the most zealous inquirer feels, as to every thing which he _knows_, and his insatiable avidity for every thing which he does _not_ know, that “if Truth were fairly to show herself as she is, all would be ruined; but it is plain, that she knows very well, of how great importance it is, that she should keep herself out of sight.”

If we were to acquire, by an unhappy foresight, the knowledge which is not yet ours, it is very evident, that we must soon regard it, in the same manner, as the knowledge which we have already acquired. The charm of novelty, the delights of gratified curiosity, would not be for us. The prey would be at our feet; and it would be vain, therefore, to expect that ardour of soul, which is kindled, amid the hopes and the fears, the tumult and the competition of the chase.

“If man were _omnipotent_, without being _God_,” says Rousseau, “he would be a miserable creature: he would be deprived of the pleasure of _desiring_; and what privation would be so difficult to be borne!” It may be said, at least with equal truth, that, if man were _omniscient_, without the other perfections of the Divinity, he would be far less happy than at present. To infinite benevolence, indeed, accompanied with infinite power, a corresponding infinity of knowledge must afford the highest of all imaginable gratifications, by its subservience to those gracious plans of good, which are manifested in the universe, and which, in making known to us the existence of the Supreme Being, have made him known to us, as the object of grateful love and admiration. But if, in other respects, we were to continue as at present,--with our erring passions, and moral weaknesses of every sort,--to be doomed to have nothing _to learn_, would be a punishment, not a blessing. In such circumstances, if they were to continue forever, the annihilation of our intellectual being would not be an evil so great, as the mere extinction of our curiosity, and of all the delights and consolations which it affords, not merely when we gratify it, but when we are merely seeking to gratify it.

“Else wherefore burns,
In mortal bosoms, this unquenched hope
That breathes from day to day sublimer things,
And mocks possession! Wherefore darts the mind,
With such resistless ardour, to embrace
Majestic forms, impatient to be free,
Proud of the strong contention of her toils,
Proud to be daring?”[54]--

“Why departs she wide[55]
From the dull track and journey of her times,
To grasp the good she knows not? In the field
Of things which may be, in the spacious field
Of science, potent arts, or dreadful arms,
To raise up scenes, in which her own desires
Contented may repose,--when things which are
Pall on her temper like a twice told tale.”[56]

It is sufficient, that we are endowed with powers of discovery. Our gratitude is due to Heaven for the gift; and the more due for that gracious wisdom, which has known how to _limit_ the powers which it gave, so as to produce a greater result of good by the very limitation. Our prejudices, which sometimes forbid reasoning, and the errors, to which our imperfect reasoning often leads us, we should consider, when all their remote relations are taken into account, as indirect sources of happiness; and though we may wish, and justly wish, to analyse them, and to rise above their influence,--for, without this exertion, and consequent feeling of progress, on our part, they would be evil rather than good,--we must not forget, that it is to them we owe the luxury, which the immediate analysis affords, and the acquisition of the innumerable truths, which the prevalence of these errors, in past ages, has left to be discovered by the ages which succeed.

In this, and in every thing which relates to man, Nature has had in view, not the individual or the single generation only, but the _permanent race_. She has therefore, not exhausted her bounty on any one period of the long succession; but, by a provision, which makes our very weakness instrumental to her goodness, she has given to all, that distant and ever-brightening hope, which, till we arrive at our glorious destination,

“Leads from goal to goal,
And opens still, and opens on the soul.”

With enough of _mental vigour_ to advance still farther in the tracks, of science that are already formed, and to point out new tracks to those who are to follow, we have enough of _weakness_ to prevent us from exploring and exhausting, what is to occupy, in the same happy search, the millions of millions that are to succeed us. Truth itself, indeed, will always be progressive; but there will still, at every stage of the progress, be something to _discover_, and abundance to _confute_. “In 24,000 years,” to borrow the prediction of a very skilful prophet,--“In 24,000 years, there will arise philosophers, who will boast, that they are destroying the errors which have been reigning in the world for 30,000 years past; and there will be people who will believe, that they are then only just beginning to open their eyes.”

In these remarks, on the nature of our varied consciousness, and on the unity and identity of the mind in all its varieties,--we have considered the mental phenomena in their _general_ aspect. We have now to consider them as arranged in kindred classes,--or rather to attempt the difficult task of the classification itself.

To this I shall proceed in my next Lecture.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] Reid's Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay III. Chap. vi.

[52] Essay concerning Human Understanding, B. ii. c. xxvii. sect. 20.

[53] Essay concerning Human Understanding, B. ii. c. xxvii. sect. 9.

[54] Pleasures of Imagination, (first form of the poem,) B. i. v. 166-171. 173-5.

[55] ----Why departs the soul
Wide from the track.--ORIG.

[56] Pleasures of Imagination, (second form of the Poem,) B. i. v. 213-220.

LECTURE XVI.

ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF MIND.

After considering the Phenomena of the Mind _in general_, we are now to proceed to consider them, in the _separate classes_ in which they may be arranged. The phenomena themselves, indeed, are almost infinite, and it might seem, on first reflection a very hopeless task, to attempt to reduce, under a few heads, the innumerable feelings, which diversify almost every moment of our life. But to those, who are acquainted with the wonders, which classification has performed, in the other sciences, the task, difficult as it is, will still seem not absolutely hopeless; though in one respect, its difficulty will be more highly estimated by them, than by others;--since _they_ only, who know the advantage of the fixed and definite nature of the objects of classification, in other _sciences_, can feel, how much greater the obstacles must be, to any accurate arrangement, in a science, of which the objects are indefinite, and complex, incapable of being fixed for a moment in the same state, and destroyed by the very effort to grasp them. But, in this, as in other instances, in which nature has given us difficulties with which to cope, she has not left us to be wholly overcome; or, if we must yield, she has at least armed us for so vigorous a struggle, that we gain additional intellectual strength, even in being vanquished. “Studiorum salutarium, etiam citra effectum, salutaris tractatio est.” If she has placed us in a labyrinth, she has at the same time furnished us with a clue, which may guide us, not indeed through all its dark and intricate windings, but through those broad paths, which conduct us into day. The single power, by which we discover resemblance or relation in general, is a sufficient aid to us, in the perplexity and confusion of our first attempts at arrangement. It begins, by converting thousands, and more than thousands, into one, and, reducing, in the same manner, the numbers thus formed, it arrives at last at the few distinctive characters of those great comprehensive tribes, on which it ceases to operate, because there is nothing left to oppress the memory, or the understanding. If there had been no such science as chemistry, who could have ventured to suppose, that the innumerable bodies, animate and inanimate, on the surface of our globe, and all, which we have been able to explore in the very depths of the earth itself, are reducible, and even in the imperfect state of the science, have been already reduced, to a few simple elements? The science of mind, as it is a science of analysis, I have more than once compared to _chemistry_, and pointed out to you, and illustrated, its various circumstances of resemblance. In this too, we may hope the analogy will hold,--that, as the innumerable aggregates, in the one science, have been reduced and simplified, the innumerable complex feelings in the other will admit of a corresponding reduction and simplification.

The classes which we form, in the mental as well as in the material universe, depend, as you cannot but know, on certain relations which we discover in the phenomena; and the relations according to which objects may be arranged, are of course various, as they are considered by different individuals in different points of view. Some of these relations present themselves immediately, as if to our very glance; others are discoverable only after attentive reflection;--and though the former, merely as presenting themselves more readily, may seem on that account, better suited for the general purpose of arrangement, it is not the less true that the classification, which approaches nearest to perfection, is far from being always that which is founded on relations, that seem at first sight the most obvious. The rudest wanderer in the fields may imagine, that the profusion of blossoms around him,--in the greater number of which he is able, himself, to discover many striking resemblances,--may be reduced into some order of arrangement. But he would be little aware, that the principle according to which they are now universally classed, has relation, not to the parts which appear to him to constitute the whole flower, but to some small part of the blossom, which he does not perceive, at the distance at which he passes it, and which scarcely attracts his eye, when he plucks it from the stem.

To our _mental_ classifications the remark is equally applicable. In these too, the most obvious distinctions are not always those which answer best the purposes of systematic arrangement. The phenomena of the mind, are only the mind itself existing in certain states; and, as many of these states are in their nature agreeable, and others disagreeable, this difference, which is to the sentient being himself the most important of all differences, may be supposed, to afford the most obvious principle of classification. What is pleasant, what is painful, are perhaps the first classes, which the infant has formed long before he is capable of distinguishing them by a name; and the very imbecility of idiotism itself, to which nothing is true or false, or right or wrong,--and to which there is no future, beyond the succeeding moment,--is yet capable of making this primary distinction, and of regulating, according to it, its momentary desires.

“The love of pleasure is man's eldest-born,
Born in his cradle, living to his tomb.
Wisdom,--her younger sister, though more grave,
Was meant to minister, not to dethrone[57]
Imperial Pleasure, queen of human hearts.”[58]

The distribution, which we should be inclined to make, of our mental phenomena, according to this obvious principle, would be into those which are pleasing, those which are painful, and those which are neither painful nor pleasing. But, however obvious this first distinction may seem, as a principle of arrangement, the circumstances, on which the differences depend, are so very indefinite, that the distinction,--though it may be useful to have it in view, in its most striking and permanent cases,--cannot be adopted, as the basis of any regular system. To take the mere pleasures and pains of _sense_, for example,--to what intelligible division could we reduce these, which are not merely fugitive in themselves, but vary, from pain to pleasure, and from pleasure to pain, with a change of their external objects, so slight often, as to be scarcely appreciable, and, in many cases, even when the external objects have continued exactly the same? How small, and how variable a boundary separates the warmth which is pleasing from the heat which pains! A certain quantity of light is grateful to the eye. Increase it;--it becomes, not indifferent,--though that would be a less change,--but absolutely painful; and, if the eye be inflamed, even the small quantity of light,--which was agreeable before, and which seemed, therefore, to admit of being very safely classed among the sources of pleasure,--is now converted into a source of agony. Since it is impossible, therefore, to fix the limits of pain and pleasure, and every affection or state of mind, agreeable, disagreeable, or indifferent, may, by a very trifling change of circumstance, be converted into an opposite state, it is evident, that any division, founded on this vague and transient distinction, must perplex, and mislead us, in our attempts to systematize the almost infinite diversities of thought and feeling, rather than give us any aid in the arrangement.

The great leading division of the mental phenomena which has met with most general adoption by philosophers, is into those which belong to the _understanding_, and those which belong to the _will_;--a division which is very ancient, but though sanctioned by the approbation of many ages, very illogical; since the will, which, in this division, is nominally opposed to the intellect, is so far from being opposed to it in reality, that, even by the asserters of its diversity, it is considered as exercising, in the intellectual department, an empire almost as wide, as in the department allotted to itself. We reason, and plan, and invent, at least as _voluntarily_,--as we esteem, or hate, or hope, or fear. How many emotions are there too, which cannot, without absolute torture, be forced into _either_ division! To take only a few instances, out of many,--to what class are we to reduce grief, joy, admiration, astonishment, which perhaps are not phenomena of the mere understanding, and which,--though they may lead indirectly to desires or volitions,--have nothing, in themselves, that is voluntary, or that can be considered as in any peculiar degree connected with the _will_? The division of the mental phenomena into those which belong to the _understanding_, and those which belong to the _will_, seems, therefore, to be as faulty, as would be the division of animals, into those which have legs and those which have wings; since the same animals might have both legs and wings, and since whole tribes of animals have neither one nor the other.

Another division of the phenomena of mind, similar to the former, and of equal antiquity, since it corresponds with the very ancient division of philosophy into the contemplative and the active, is into those which belong to the _intellectual_ powers, and those which belong to the _active_ powers. “Philosophia et contemplativa est et activa; spectat simulque agit.” I must confess, however, that this division of the mental phenomena, as referable to the intellectual and the active powers of the mind,--though it has the sanction of very eminent names, appears to me to be faulty, exactly in the same manner as the former, which, indeed, it may be considered almost as representing, under a change of name. Its parts are not opposed to each other, and it does not include all the phenomena which it should include. Is mere grief, for example, or mere astonishment, to be referred to our intellectual or to our active powers? I do not speak of the faculties which they may or may not call into action; but of the feelings themselves, as present phenomena or states of the mind. And, in whatsoever manner we may define the term _active_, is the mind more active, when it merely desires good and fears evil, when it looks with esteem on virtue, and with indignation, or disgust, and contempt on vice, than when it pursues a continued train of reasoning, or fancy, or historical investigation? when, with Newton, it lays down the laws of planetary motion, and calculates, in what exact point of the heavens, any one of the orbs, which move within the immense range of our solar system, will be found to have its place at any particular moment, one thousand years hereafter; when, with Shakespeare, it wanders beyond the universe itself, calling races of beings into existence, which nature never _knew_, but which nature might almost _own_--or when, with Tacitus, it enrols slowly, year after year, that dreadful reality of crimes and sufferings, which even dramatic horror, in all its license of wild imagination, can scarcely reach--the long unvarying catalogue, of tyrants,--and executioners,--and victims, that return thanks to the gods and die,--and accusers rich with their blood, and more mighty, as more widely hated, amid the multitudes of prostrate slaves, still looking whether there may not yet have escaped some lingering virtue, which it may be a merit to destroy, and having scarcely leisure to feel even the agonies of remorse, in the continued sense of the precariousness of their own gloomy existence? When it thus records the warning lessons of the past, or expatiates in fields, which itself creates, of fairy beauty or sublimity, or comprehends whole moving worlds within its glance, and calculates and measures infinitude--the mind is surely active, or there are no moments in which it is so. So little, indeed, are the intellectual powers opposed to the active, that it is only when some intellectual energy co-exists with desire, that the mind is said to be active, even by those who are unaccustomed to analytical inquiries, or to metaphysical nomenclature. The love of power, or the love of glory, when there is no opportunity of intellectual exertion, may, in the common acceptation of the word, be as passive as tranquillity itself. The passion is active only when, with intellectual action, it compares means with ends, and different means with each other, and deliberates, and resolves, and executes. Chain some revolutionary usurper to the floor of a dungeon, his ambition may be active still, because he may still be intellectually busy in planning means of deliverance and vengeance; and, on his bed of straw, may conquer half the world. But, if we could fetter his reason and fancy, as we can fetter his limbs, what activity would remain, though he were still to feel that mere desire of power or glory, which, though usually followed by intellectual exertion, is itself as prior to these exertions, all that constitutes ambition, as a passion? There would, indeed, still be in his mind the awful elements of that force, which bursts upon the world with conflagration and destruction; but, though there would be the _thunder_, it would be the thunder sleeping in its cloud. To _will_, is to act with desire; and, unless in the production of mere muscular motion, it is only _intellectually_ that we can act. To class the active powers, therefore, as distinct from the intellectual, is to class them, as opposed to that, without which, as active powers, they cannot even exist.

It may, certainly, be contended, that, though the mental phenomena, usually ranked under this head, are not immediately connected with action, they may yet deserve this generic distinction, as leading to action indirectly,--and if they led, in any peculiar sense, to action, however indirectly, the claim might be allowed. But, even with this limited meaning, it is impossible to admit the distinction asserted for them. In what sense, for example, can it be said, that _grief_ and _joy_, which surely are not to be classed under the intellectual powers of the mind, lead to action even indirectly, more than any other feelings, or states, in which the mind is capable of existing? We may, indeed, _act_ when we are joyful or sorrowful, as we may act when we perceive a present object, or remember the past; but we may also remain at rest, and remain equally at rest, in the one case, as in the other. Our intellectual energies, indeed, even in this sense, as indirectly leading to action, are, in most cases, far more active, than sorrow, even in its very excess of agony and despair; and, in those cases in which sorrow _does_ truly lead to action, as when we strive to remedy the past, the mere regret which constitutes the sorrow, is not so closely connected with the conduct which we pursue, as the intellectual states of mind that intervened--the successive judgments, by which we have compared projects with projects, and chosen at last the plan, which, in relation to the object in view, has seemed to us, upon the whole, the most expedient.

If, then, as I cannot but think, the arrangement of the mental phenomena, as belonging to two classes of powers, the intellectual and the active, be at once incomplete, and not accurate, even to the extent to which it reaches, it may be worth while to try at least some other division, even though there should not be any very great hope of success. Though we should fail in our endeavour to obtain some more precise and comprehensive principle of arrangement, there is also some advantage gained, by viewing objects, according to new circumstances of agreement or analogy. We see, in this case, what had long-passed before us unobserved, while we were accustomed only to the order and nomenclature of a former method; for, when the mind has been habituated to certain classifications, it is apt, in considering objects, to give its attention only to those properties which are essential to the classification, and to overlook, or at least comparatively to neglect, other properties equally important and essential to the very nature of the separate substances that are classed, but not included in the system as characters of generic resemblance. The individual object, indeed, when its place in any system has been long fixed and familiar to us, is probably conceived by us less, as an _individual_, than as one of a class of individuals, that agree in certain respects, and the frequent consideration of it, as one of a class, must fix the peculiar relations of the class, more strongly in the mind, and weaken proportionally the impression of every other quality that is not so included. A _new_ classification, therefore, which includes, in its generic character, those neglected qualities, will of course draw to them attention, which they could not otherwise have obtained; and, the more various the views are, which we take of the objects of any science, the juster consequently, because the more equal, will be the estimate which we form of them. So truly is this the case, that I am convinced, that no one has ever read over the mere terms of a new division, in a science, however familiar the science may have been to him, without learning more than this new division itself, without being struck with some property or relation, the importance of which he _now_ perceives most clearly, and which he is quite astonished that he should have overlooked so long before.

I surely need not warn you, after the observations which I made in my Introductory Lectures, on the Laws and Objects of Physical Inquiry in General, that every _classification_ has reference only to our mode of considering objects; and that, amid all the varieties of systems which our love of novelty, and our love of distinction, or our pure love of truth and order may introduce, the phenomena themselves, whether accurately, or inaccurately classed, continue unaltered. The mind is formed susceptible of certain affections. These states or affections we may generalize more or less; and, according to our generalization, may give them more or fewer names. But whatever may be the extent of our vocabulary, the mind itself,--as independent of these transient designations, as He who fixed its constitution,--still continues to exhibit the same unaltered susceptibilities, which it originally received; as the flowers, which the same divine Author formed, spring up, in the same manner, observing the same seasons, and spreading to the sun the same foliage and blossoms, whatever be the system and the corresponding nomenclature according to which botanists may have agreed to rank and name their tribes. The great Preserver of nature has not trusted us, with the dangerous power of altering a single physical law which He has established, though He has given us unlimited power over the _language_ which is of our own creation. It is still with us, as it was with our common sire in the original birthplace of our race. The Almighty presents to us all the objects that surround us, wherever we turn our view; but He presents them to us, only that we may give them names. Their powers and susceptibilities they already possess, and we cannot alter these, even as they exist in a single atom.

It may, perhaps, seem absurd, even to suppose, that we should think ourselves able to change, by a few generic words, the properties of the substances which we have classed; and if the question were put to us, as to this effect of our language, in any particular case, there can be no doubt, that we should answer in the negative, and express astonishment that such a question should have been put. But the illusion is not the less certain, because we are not aware of its influence; and, indeed, it could no longer be an illusion, if we were completely aware of it. It requires, however, only a very little reflection on what has passed in our own minds, to discover, that, when we have given a _name_ to any quality, that quality acquires immediately, in our imagination, a comparative importance, very different from what it had before; and though nature in itself be truly unchanged, it is ever after, relatively to our conception, different. A difference of words is, in this case, more than a mere verbal difference. Though it be not the expression of a difference of doctrine, it very speedily becomes so. Hence it is, that the same warfare, which the rivalries of individual ambition, or the opposite interests, or supposed opposite interests, of nations have produced, in the great theatre of civil history, have been produced, in the small but tumultuous field of science, by the supposed incompatibility of a few abstract terms; and, indeed, as has been truly said, the sects of philosophers have combated, with more persevering violence, to settle what they mean by the constitution of the world, than all the conquerors of the world have done to render themselves its masters.

Still less, I trust, is it necessary to repeat the warning, already so often repeated, that you are not to conceive, that any classification of the states or affections of the mind, as referable to certain powers or susceptibilities, makes these powers any thing different and separate from the mind itself, as originally and essentially susceptible of the various modifications of which these powers are only a shorter name. And yet what innumerable controversies in philosophy have arisen, and are still frequently arising, from this very mistake, strange and absurd as the mistake may seem. No sooner, for example, were certain affections of the mind classed together, as belonging to the _will_, and certain others, as belonging to the _understanding_,--that is to say, no sooner was the mind, existing in certain _states_, denominated the understanding, and in certain other states denominated the will,--than the understanding and the will ceased to be considered as the same individual substance, and became immediately, as it were, two opposite and contending powers, in the empire of mind, as distinct, as any two sovereigns, with their separate nations under their controul; and it became an object of as fierce contention to determine, whether certain affections of the mind belonged to the _understanding_, or to the _will_, as, in the management of political affairs, to determine, whether a disputed province belonged to one potentate, or to another. Every new diversity of the faculties of the mind, indeed, converted each faculty into a _little independent mind_,--as if the original mind were like that wonderful animal, of which naturalists tell us, that may be cut into an almost infinite number of parts, each of which becomes a polypus, as perfect as that from which it was separated. The only difference is, that those who make us acquainted with this wonderful property of the _polypus_, acknowledge the divisibility of the parent animal; while those, who assert the spiritual multiplicity, are at the same time assertors of the absolute indivisibility of that which they divide.

After these warnings, then, which, I trust, have been almost superfluous, let us now endeavour to form some classification of the mental phenomena without considering, whether our arrangement be similar or dissimilar to that of others. In short, let us forget, as much as possible, that any prior arrangements have been made, and think of the phenomena only. It would, indeed, require more than human vision, to comprehend all these phenomena of the mind, in our gaze at once,--

“To survey,
Stretch'd out beneath us, all the mazy tracts
Of passion and opinion,--like a waste
Of sands, and flowery lawns, and tangling woods,
Where mortals roam bewilder'd.”

But there is a mode of bringing all this multitude of objects, within the sphere of our narrow sight, in the same manner, as the expanse of landscape, over which the eye would be long in wandering,--the plains, and hills, and woods, and waterfalls,--may be brought, by human art, within the compass of a mirror, far less than the smallest of the innumerable objects which it represents.

The process of _gradual generalizing_, by which this reduction is performed, I have already explained to you. Let us now proceed to avail ourselves of it.

All the feelings and thoughts of the mind, I have already frequently repeated, are only the mind itself existing in certain states. To these successive states our knowledge of the mind, and consequently our arrangements, which can comprehend only what we know, are necessarily limited. With this simple word _state_, I use the phrase _affection_ of mind as synonymous, to express the momentary feeling, whatever it may be,--with this difference only, that the word _affection_ seems to me better suited for expressing that momentary feeling, when considered as an _effect_,--the feeling itself as a state of the mind, and the relation which any particular state of mind, may bear to the preceding circumstances, whatever they may be that have induced it. Our _states_ of mind, however, or our _affections_ of mind, are the simplest terms, which I can use for expressing the whole series of phenomena of the mind in all their diversity, as existing phenomena, without any mixture of hypothesis, as to the particular mode in which the successive changes may be supposed to arise.

When we consider, then, the various states or affections of the mind, which form this series, one circumstance of difference must strike us, that some of them arise immediately, in consequence of the presence of external objects,--and some, as immediately, in consequence of certain preceding affections of the mind itself. The one set, therefore, are obviously the result of the laws both of matter and of mind,--implying, in external objects, a power of affecting the mind, as well as, in the mind, a susceptibility of being affected by them. The other set result from the susceptibilities of the mind itself, which has been formed by its divine Author to exist in certain states, and to exist in these in a certain relative order of succession. The affections of the one class arise, because some external object is present;--the affections of the other class arise, because some previous change in the states of the mind has taken place.

To illustrate this distinction by example, let us suppose ourselves, in walking across a lawn, to turn our eyes to a particular _point_, and to perceive there _an oak_. That is to say, the presence of the oak, or rather of the light reflected from it, occasions a certain new state of the mind, which we call a sensation of _vision_, an affection, which belongs to the mind alone, indeed, but of which we have every reason to suppose, that the mind, _of itself_, without the presence of light, would not have been the subject. The peculiar sensation, therefore, is the result of the presence of the light reflected from the oak; and we perceive it, because the mind is capable of being affected by external things. But this affection of the mind, which has an external object for its immediate cause, is not the only mental change which takes place. Other changes succeed it, without any other external impression. We compare the oak with some other tree which we have seen before, and we are struck with its superior magnificence and beauty;--we imagine how some scene more familiar to us would appear, if it were adorned with this tree, and how the scene before us would appear, if it were stripped of it;--we think of the number of years, which must have passed, since the _oak_ was an _acorn_;--and we moralize, perhaps, on the changes, which have taken place, in the little history of ourselves and our friends, and, still more, on the revolutions of kingdoms,--and the birth and decay of a whole generation of mankind,--while it has been silently and regularly advancing to maturity, through the sunshine and the storm. Of all the variety of states of the mind, which these processes of thought involve, the only one, which can be ascribed to an external object as its direct cause, is the primary perception of the oak; the rest have been the result not immediately of any thing external, but of preceding states of the mind;--that particular mental state, which constituted the perception of the oak, being followed immediately by that different state, which constituted the remembrance of some tree observed before, and this by that different state which constituted the comparison of the two; and so successively, through all the different processes of thought enumerated. The mind, indeed, could not without the presence of the oak,--that is to say, without the presence of the light which the oak reflects,--have existed in the state which constituted the perception of the oak. But as little could any external object, without this primary mental affection, have produced immediately, any of those other states of the mind, which followed the perception. There is, thus, one obvious distinction of the mental phenomena; as in relation to their causes, external or internal; and, whatever other terms of subdivision it may be necessary to employ, we have, at least, _one_ boundary, and know what it is we mean, when we speak of the external and internal affections of the mind.

The first stage of our generalization, then, has been the reduction of all the mental phenomena to two definite classes, according as the causes, or immediate antecedents, of our feelings are themselves mental or material. Our next stage must be the still further reduction of these, by some new generalizations of the phenomena of each class.

The former of these classes,--that of our _external_ affections of the mind,--is, indeed, so very simple, as to require but little subdivision. The other class, however, that of the internal affections or states of the mind,--comprehends so large a proportion of the mental phenomena, and these so various, that, without many subdivisions, it would be itself of little aid to us in our arrangement.

The first great subdivision, then, which I would form, of the internal class, is into our _intellectual states of mind_, and our _emotions_. The latter of these classes comprehends all, or nearly all the mental states, which have been classed, by others, under the head of active powers. I prefer, however, the term _emotions_, partly, because I wish to avoid the phrase _active powers_,--which, I own, appears to me awkward and ambiguous, as opposed to other powers, which are not said to be passive; and partly, for reasons before mentioned, because our intellectual states or energies,--far from being opposed to our active powers,--are, as we have seen, essential elements of their activity,--so essential, that, without them, _these_ never could have had the name of _active_; and because I wish to comprehend, under the term, various states of the mind, which cannot, with propriety, in any case, be termed _active_,--such as grief, joy, astonishment,--and others which have been commonly, though, I think, inaccurately, ascribed to the intellectual faculties,--such as the feelings of beauty and sublimity,--feelings, which are certainly much more analogous to our other emotions,--to our feelings of love or awe,--for example,--than to our mere remembrances or reasonings, or to any other states of mind, which can strictly be called intellectual. I speak at present, it must be remembered, of the mere feelings produced by the contemplation of beautiful or sublime objects,--not of the judgment, which we form, of objects, as more or less fit to excite these feelings; the judgment being truly _intellectual_, like all our other judgments; but being, at the same time, as distinct from the _feelings_ which it measures, as any other judgment from the external or internal objects which it compares.

The exact meaning of the term _emotion_, it is difficult to state in any form of words,--for the same reason which makes it difficult, or rather impossible, to explain, what we mean by the term thought, or the terms sweetness or bitterness. What can be more opposite than pleasure and pain! the real distinction of which is evidently familiar, not to man only, but to every thing that lives; and yet if we were to attempt to show, in what their difference consists, or to give a verbal definition of either, we should find the task to be no easy one. Every person understands, what is meant by an _emotion_, at least as well, as he understands what is meant by any intellectual power; or, if he do not, it can be explained to him, only by stating the number of feelings to which we give the name, or the circumstances which induce them. All of them, indeed, agree in _this_ respect, that they imply peculiar vividness of feeling, with _this_ important circumstance, to distinguish them from the vivid pleasures and pains of sense,--that they do not arise immediately from the presence of external objects, but subsequently to the primary feelings, which we term sensations or perceptions. Perhaps if any definition of them be possible, they may be defined to be _vivid feelings_, arising immediately from the consideration of objects, perceived, or remembered, or imagined, or from other prior emotions. In some cases,--as in that of the emotion which beauty excites,--they may succeed so rapidly to the primary perception, as almost to form a part of it. Yet we find no great difficulty of analysis, in separating the _pleasing effect_ of beauty, from the perception of the mere form and colour, and can very readily imagine the same accurate perception of _these_, without the feeling of beauty, as we can imagine the same feeling of beauty to accompany the perception of forms and colours very different.

“Sure the rising sun,
O'er the cerulean convex of the sea,
With equal brightness, and with equal warmth,
Might roll his fiery orb; nor yet the soul
Thus feel her frame expanded, and her powers
Exulting in the splendour she beholds,
Like a young conqueror moving through the pomp
Of some triumphal day. When join'd at eve,
Soft murmuring streams, and gales of gentlest breath,
Melodious Philomela's wakeful strain
Attemper, could not man's discerning ear,
Through all its tones, the sympathy pursue;
Nor yet this breath divine of nameless joy
Steal through his veins, and fan the awaken'd heart,
Mild as the breeze, yet rapturous as the song.”[59]

Our emotions, then, even in the cases in which they seem most directly to _co-exist_ with perception, are still easily distinguishable from it; and, in like manner, when they arise from the _intellectual states_ of memory, imagination, comparison, they are equally distinguishable from what we _remember_, or _imagine_, or _compare_. They form truly a separate order of the internal affections of the mind,--as distinct from the intellectual phenomena, as the class, to which they both belong, is distinguishable from the class of external affections, that arise immediately from the presence of objects without.

FOOTNOTES:

[57] Instead of “not to dethrone,” the original has “and not to mar.”

[58] Night Thoughts, viii. 595-599.

[59] Pleasures of Imagination, Book III. v. 464-478.

LECTURE XVII.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF MIND.--CLASS I. EXTERNAL STATES.--INTRODUCTORY.

In my last Lecture, Gentlemen, I endeavoured to prepare the way, for arranging, in certain classes, that almost infinite variety of phenomena, which the mind exhibits,--pointing out to you the peculiar difficulty of such a classification, in the case of phenomena so indefinite and fugitive, as those of the mind, and the nature of that generalizing principle of analogy or resemblance, on which every classification, whether of the material or mental phenomena, must alike proceed. I then took a slight view of the primary, leading, divisions of the phenomena of the mind, which have met with most general adoption,--the very ancient division of them, as of two great departments, belonging to the _understanding_ and the _will_,--and the similar division of them, as referable to two classes of powers, termed the _intellectual_ and _active powers_ of the mind. I explained to you the reasons, which led me to reject both these divisions, as at once incomplete, from not comprehending all the phenomena, and inaccurate, from confounding even those phenomena, which they may truly be considered as comprehending.

After rejecting these, it became necessary to attempt some new arrangement, especially as we found reason to believe that some advantage could scarcely fail to arise from the attempt itself, even though it should fail as to its great object; and we, therefore, proceeded to consider and arrange the phenomena, as nearly as possible, in the same manner as we should have done, if no arrangement of them had ever been made before.

In thus considering them, the first important distinction which occurred to us, related to their _causes_, or immediate antecedents, as foreign to the mind, or as belonging to the mind itself; a distinction too striking to be neglected as a ground of primary division. Whatever that may be, which feels and thinks, it has been formed to be susceptible of certain changes of state, in consequence of the mere presence of external objects, or at least of changes produced in our mere bodily organs, which, themselves, may be considered as external to the mind; and it is susceptible of certain other changes of state, without any cause external to itself, one state of mind being the immediate result of a former state of mind, in consequence of those laws of succession of thoughts and feelings, which He, who created the immortal soul of man, as a faint shadow of His own eternal spirit, has established in the constitution of our mental frame. In conformity with this distinction, we made our first division of the phenomena of the mind, into its _external_ and _internal_ affections; the word _affection_ being used, by me, as the simplest term for expressing a mere change of state induced, in relation to the affecting cause, or the circumstances, whatever they may have been, by which the change was immediately preceded.

The class of _internal affections_,--by far the more copious and various of the two,--we divided into two great orders, our _intellectual_ states of mind, and our _emotions_, words which are, perhaps, better understood, before any definition is attempted of them, than after it, but which are sufficiently intelligible without definition, and appear to exhaust completely the whole internal affections of the mind. We have sensations or perceptions of the objects that affect our bodily organs; these I term the sensitive or external affections of the mind; we remember objects--we imagine them in new situations--we compare their relations; these mere conceptions or notions of objects and their qualities, as elements of our general knowledge, are what I have termed the intellectual states of the mind; we are moved with certain lively feelings, on the consideration of what we thus perceive, or remember, or imagine, or compare, with feelings, for example, of beauty, or sublimity, or astonishment, or love, or hate, or hope, or fear; these, and various other vivid feelings, analogous to them, are our _emotions_.

There is no portion of our consciousness, which does not appear to me to be included in one or other of these three divisions. To know all our sensitive states or affections,--all our intellectual states,--and all our emotions, is to know all the states or phenomena of the mind;

“Unde animus scire incipiat, quibus inchoet orsa
Principiis seriem rerum tenuemque catenam
Mnemosyne; Ratio unde, rudi sub pectore tardum
Augeat imperium, et primum mortalibus ægris
_Ira, dolor, metus, et curæ_ nascantur inanes.”[60]