of tactual measurement, but to all the pheBomena; for in the measurement even of the most familiar object, as we have seen, a difference of the mere rapidity or slowness with which we pass our hand along its surface, and therefore of the mere length or shortness of the accompanying series of feelings, is sufficient to give in our estimate a corresponding difference of length or shortness to the surface which we touch. Length, indeed, considered abstractly, whether it be of time or of space, is nothing more in our conception than a number of continuous parts; and this definition is equally applicable to it, in the one case as in the other. "5. In whatever manner the first mo tions of the fingers may be produced, the infant will soon discover that they are renewable by his will; and he will often exercise this power. From the accustomed antecedents he will expect the accustomed consequents, exactly as in after life; since this anticipation, which is independent of all reasoning, seems to flow from a law of our physical being. Certain series of feelings, then, begin and end in uniform order; the anticipation of which is fulfilled as often as he does not will to suspend them. At last, however, they are suspended, without any will on his part, when some external substance has been placed in his hand. He expected the whole of the accustomed series: but the place of a portion of it is now supplied by another feeling; and since all of which he was conscious in himself at the moment preceding the interruption, was exactly the same as in the many former instances when the regular sequence took place, he ascribes the feeling of resistance to something that is foreign to him. There is something, then, which is not himself something that represents a number of concurring lengths something that gives rise to the feeling of resistance; and we have thus, however obscure they may be as first conceived by him, the rude elements, which afterwards become more distinct in his notion of a system of external things. Matter is that which is without us which has parts which resists our effort to compress Thus he thinks that our notion of space is entirely founded upon a series of successive feelings experienced in bending the muscles, and that the notion so formed is afterwards transferred to sensations received through the medium of other organs, and accompanies them only as an acquired perception. He conceives that the optic nerve receives only the sensation of colourthat we do not originally perceive colour spread out in particular figures, but that we ascribe extension to colour in consequence of the series of muscular sensations experienced in moving the eye along the parts of a figure. In VOL. VII. this hypothesis there is far more ori- Having, in the first part of the volume, discussed the external affections I of the mind, he next proceeds to consider the internal affections, which he subdivides into intellectual states and emotions. The part which relates to intellect is all that is found in the present volume, which was published in an unfinished state, before the interesting branch relative to the emotions, had been got ready for the press. In examining the intellectual states of the mind, the author shows admirable powers of analysis. His observations are clear, comprehensive, and satisfactory; and the following quotation will enable the reader to perceive something of his mode of thinking. "Our Intellectual States of Mind, however much they may specifically differ, will be found, even in their minutest variations, to exhibit only two generic diversities,-diversities which, in the ordinary metaphysical sense of those terms, may be expressed very nearly by the phrases, Conceptions, and Feelings of Relation. Our whole trains of thought, if we abstract from them the Sensations which external objects may occasion ally induce, and the emotions that may frequently mingle with them, will be found to be composed of these, and of these alone. It is the very nature of the mind to be susceptible of these in certain trains; one perception or conception suggesting, or, in other words, having for its immediate consequent, some other conception: as when the sight of a picture suggests the Artist who painted it, and the conception of the painter suggests, in like manner, the name of some other artist of the same School, and this afterwards the City in which that School of painting chiefly flourished. The successive conceptions, in such cases, arise in the mind, in the absence of the external objects that produced originally the corresponding perceptions; and, though capable of being modified to a certain extent by states of the bodily frame, are, as far as any discoveries of the physiologist have yet been able to throw light on their origin, Internal Affections of the Mind,-results of a tendency of the mind itself, in certain circumstances, to exist in one state after existing in some other state. The tendency to this renovation of former feelings has commonly received the name of Association of Ideas-a name that is faulty in various respects, as limiting to our mere Ideas an influence which is not confined to them, and as seeming to imply some mysterious process of union as necessary before the suggestion itself; which, whether it be found to be true or not, on a more subtile analysis of the phenomena, is at least not very easy to be reconciled with the opinions of those who invented, or have continued to employ the phrase. I have preferred, therefore, for the sake of greater precision, and for avoiding the intermixture of any thing that can be considered as con jectural, the name of Simple Suggestion; meaning by that phrase to express nothing more than is actually observed by us, in the readiness of certain feelings to arise afof former perceptions or conceptions or other ter certain other feelings, as resemblances preceding states of the mind; and restricting the phrase uniformly to such simple sequences of the similar feelings, exclusively of all notions of relation of object to object, that may occasionally arise from them, and be intermingled with them. "Our trains of thought are not composed, then, merely of such conceptions, or begin, and continue, and pass away, as it other resemblances of former feelings, that were separately, without impressing us with any common relation which they bear. In the same manner as one conception suggests another conception, the perception or conception of two or more objects suggests or gives rise to certain feelings of relation, which, as states of the mind, differ from the mere perceptions or conceptions themselves, that have given rise to them, not merely as these perceptions or conceptions appear to differ from each other, but generically as a distinct order of feelings. "There is an original tendency of the mind to the one species of suggestion, in certain circumstances, as much as to the other; and as to the one of these, which affords us mere copies of former feelings, I have given the name of Simple Suggestion; to the other, which developes a new order of states of mind, in our feelings of relation, I give the name of Relative Suggestion ;using the term Suggestion in both cases, as that which expresses most simply the mere general fact of the rise of the feelings in succession, without involving any hypothesis as to processes of former association, or any other circumstances, that may be justly or erroneously supposed to connect them." He afterwards enters into an inquiing to which simple suggestion takes ry concerning the principles, accordplace. After taking a survey of Mr Hume's opinions concerning the laws of association, Dr Brown concludes, that all the relations by which conceptions suggest each other, may be traced into Resemblance, Contrast, and former Proximity. He even inof Resemblance and Contrast, may, by clines to think, that suggestions, both farther analysis, be resolved into the single principle of proximity. "The general fact of the rise of one conception, in immediate suggestion by some other conception or perception, is shewn, as I have said, by all the phenomena of our trains of thought; and it could scarcely fail to be soon remarked, that the suggestion is not wholly vague and indiscriminate, but that certain conceptions arc, according to circumstances, more readily suggested than others. Of the knowledge of this readier suggestion, the use of verbal language, even in the rudest state of barbarous life, is a sufficient proof; as are all the rude symbols of every sort, that are employed by the most ignorant tribes in the first dawnings of civilization, for recording events in which they have nationally or individually taken interest. "What even savages could not fail to discover, must have been remarked by philosophers of every Age. Yet, though the tendency to particular suggestions must have been the basis of all practical education, so little attention had been speculatively paid to the laws which regulate them, that Mr Hume, in reducing under a few general heads the phenomena of the association of ideas," in his Essay on that subject, conceived himself to be the first who had attempted any such arrangement. "The opinion of the originality of the attempt was indeed an erroneous one; since a brief enumeration of the kinds of reministences, very similar to his own division of theta, is to be found in one of the Works of the great Founder of the Peripatetic Philosophy, and in other works of intervening authors, both of the time of the schoolmen and of more recent date. But the high authority of Mr Hume's name has given to his classification an importance and a consequent claim to our consideration, greater, perhaps, than in other respects it might just ly be considered as deserving. "Resemblance, Contiguity in place or time, and Causation, are, according to him, the principles of association of our ideas. Causation, it is evident, on his own principles, may be reduced to the head of Conti, guity, of which it is in truth the most exquisite example; and Contrast, which he endeavours in vain, by a sort of obscure and almost contradictory analysis, very unworthy of his general acuteness, to reduce under the mixed influence of Resemblance and Causation, is at least as well entitled to form a separate class, as either of the two to which he would reduce it. "It is, perhaps, however, only in consequence of our imperfect analysis of the phenomena of Suggestion, that it has been thought necessary to reduce them under distinct heads. It appears to me at least not improbable, that, on a mere minute examination, they may all be found to admit of being considered as examples of the single influence to which Mr Hume has given the name of Contiguity; and that every suggestion, therefore, may be necessarily of feelings that have previously co-existed, or been so immediately proximate in succession, that the rapid sequence, where one feeling has scarcely ceased when the other bas begun, may be considered almost like co-existence. Resemblance, for example, is said to be a principle of association. But, if one object resemble another, it must resemble it in some particular circumstance or number of circumstances. There must be some part, therefore, greater or less, of the complex perception or conception of each, that is the same, or nearly the same, as some part of the complex perception or conception of the other; and as, in both alike, this common element has co-existed with the other elements of the complex whole, it may, in either case, when only one of the objects is present to our perception or our thought, be sufficient for the reciprocal suggestion of the similar object, and may produce this effect without any other influence than that of the mere proximity of one part to the other parts that have before co-existed with it. In like manner, when two objects are strongly contrasted in any quality, they must agree at least in this one respect, that they are both extraordinary in relation to that quality; they are extremes of it, though different extremes. Each, therefore, singly, may have excited this common sentiment of extraordinariness with respect to the same particular quality; and the feeling of extraordinariness with respect to the same quality, that has attended the perception of both objects, may, like any other part of a complex whole in which two objects agree, be sufficient to produce a reciprocal suggestion, by the influence of mere co-exist ence. Brown remarks, that he considers a In treating of simple suggestion, Dr tendency towards suggestions by analogy as the principle cause of what is called genius in individuals, as it serves greatly to diversify the order of our conceptions, and so to lead to invention; for, he observes, it is evident there could be nothing new in the products of suggestion, if objects, according to their mere proximity on former occasions, were to suggest only the very objects that had before co-existed with them but there is a perpetual novelty of combination when the images, that rise after each other by that shadowy species of resemblance which constitutes analogy, are such as never existed before together, or in immediate succession. So much for the succession of mere conceptions in the imagination, and the laws that regulate their succession. He next proceeds to examine, under the name of "Feelings of Relation," those states of the mind which are commonly called Acts of the Understanding. We cannot long consider two or more objects, without being impressed with some relation which they seem to bear to each other: and this tendency to the suggestion of feel ings of relation is equally true of our conceptions, or other internal affections of the mind, as of our affections of sense; though, from the greater permanence of our perceptions when external objects are before us, they may naturally be supposed to give rise to a wider variety of such feelings of relation. In conformity with our original view of the objects of physical inquiry, the variety of relations may be classed as Relations of Co-existence or Relations of Succession ; according as, in the former case, they do not involve any notion of time, or as, in the latter case, they involve necessarily the notion which is expressed, in its double reference, by the words Before and After. I. The Relations of Co-existence may be reduced under the following heads; Position,-Resemblance or Difference,-Proportion,-Degree,-Comprehensiveness, or the relation which a whole bears to the parts that are contained in it. When we say of a cottage, that it stands on the slope of a hill; -that it is very like the cottage beside it, but very unlike one that stands in the valley; that its large sashed windows are out of proportion to the size of so diminutive a building;-that it is therefore less beautiful with all its gaudy profusion of flowers, than the cottage in the valley, with its simple lattices, which seem to sparkle more brightly through the honeysuckle that is allowed to wreathe itself to their very edge;-and when, describing the interior of it also, we say, that it contains only three small chambers,-in these few simple references, we have illustrated the whole possible variety of the Relations of Co-existence; which may be induced indeed by various objects, with various specific differences, but which, generically, must always be the same with these. Indeed, by an effort of subtlety, more violent perhaps than the phenomena warrant, it might be possible to reduce still more even this small number, and to bring, or force, the relations of proportion and degree under the more comprehensive relation of a whole and its various parts. But at least the number under which I have arranged them, as it appears to me to be in its order of distribution very easily intelligible, seems to me also sufficient for exhausting the whole phenomena, for which it was necessary to find a place and a name. We look on two cottages :-we are not merely impressed with all their sensible qualities, with which each separately, in perception, might have affected us exactly in the same manner as when we perceive them together; but we consider them relatively to each other or to other surrounding things. We think of them, therefore, in connexion with the place on which they stand; and we are impressed with their general resemblance or difference, with their various proportions, with their comparative degrees of beauty or convenience or other qualities, and with their comprehensiveness with regard to the number of parts which they respectively contain. The suggestion or instant sequence of any one of these feelings of relation, after the joint perception of the two objects, seems as little mysterious as the mere perception of the objects after the necessary previous organic change, or as any other sequence of feelings whatever: and if nothing had ever been written on the subject, the subject itself, as far as regards the mere simple feeling of relation in any particular suggestion, would scarcely seem to stand in need of any elucidation. Dr of general ideas (or what is present to The dispute concerning the nature the mind as the subject of abstract reasoning) is next treated of. Brown thinks that, in reasoning concerning a species, there is certainly present to the mind a conception of those qualities in which the individuals of the species correspond. He says, "II. When a resemblance is felt in some of the obvious qualities of external sense,landscape, and think of the person or the as when we look on a portrait or pictured scene that was meant to be represented by it ;-no difficulty is felt by any one, in considering the relation. A portrait, or a landscape, involves no technical_word of mystery; and the simple process of nature, therefore, in which feelings of resemblance arise in the mind after certain perceptions or conceptions, is all of which we think. But when we are called by philosophers to consider the circumstances on which classification is founded; though all that truly takes place in this process as essential to it, is a feeling of resemblance of object to object, less extensive indeed as to the number of similar circumstances than in a portrait or landscape, but still exactly of the same kind, when considered as a mere feeling or mental state; we seem immediately to see a thousand difficulties, because a thousand words of terrible sound start instantly on our conception. Yet when, on looking successively at a square, an oblong, a rhombus and a rhomboid, we class them all verbally as four-sided figures, we make as simple and as intelligible an affirmation, in stating the similarity of these figures in one common circumstance, as when we say of any portrait in our chamber that it is like the friend for whom it was painted. The two affirmations express nothing more than a feeling of resemblance in certain respects; and, if we had never heard of the controversy in the Schools as to the nature of Universals, we should as little have suspected of the one affirmation as of the other, that it could give occasion to any fierce logical warfare. Still less could we have suspected, that philosophers who do not deny that we are capable of feeling the resemblance of a piece of coloured canvass to the living person whom it represents, are yet unwilling to allow that we feel the slightest general resemblance of a square, an oblong, a rhombus and a rhomboid; and insist accordingly, that when we class these figures as four-sided, it is not because we have any common feeling of their similarity, or any intervening feeling or notion whatever, distinct from the perception of the separate figures, but because it is our arbitrary pleasure so to give the name. The philosophers, to whose fundamental opinion on the subject of generalization I at present allude, are those who have been commonly distinguished by the title of Nominalists and it is indeed a very striking proof of the darkening effect of a long technical controversy, that an error which appears to me, I confess, notwithstanding my high respect for the talents of those who have maintained it, a very gross one, should yet have united in its support, with the exception of a very few names, the genius of the most eminent metaphysicians of our own and other countries. But in other cerning the species. The essence of this theory of generalization is, that we have no general notions, or general feelings of any kind, which lead us to class certain objects with certain other objects, that there is nothing general but the mere names, or other symbols, which we employ, and that in all the ascending gradation, therefore, of Species, Genus, Or der, and Class, the arrangement is constituted, as truly as it is defined by the mere word that expresses it, without any relative feeling of the mind as to any common cir cumstances of resemblance intermediate be tween the primary perception of the separate objects, and the verbal designation that ranks them together. He justly argues, that before arranging objects into a class, or species, we must first have had a previous feeling of their agreement in some particular, which rendered them fit to be classed together; and that the conception of this quality common to them, with the conviction, that it is to be found in each of them, is all that is necessary to constitute our general idea of the class. Yet, in different cases, there are very great differences, with regard to the fitness of the common quality, to be conceived distinctly by itself. In some cases, one definite conception can represent the common quality, and can be applied successively to the whole individuals of the species without suffering much change or modification. As, for instance, when we say, "all flowers with four white leaves," the conception of four white leaves may continue present to the mind during all our reasoning con As we have mentioned above, the part of the work which relates to the Emotions remains unpublished, a circumstance which will create disappointment for the present, although the defect may perhaps be afterwards supplied from Dr Brown's papers. The present volume, even in its unfinished state, is considerably larger than that abstract which was published of Professor Stewart's Lectures, for a similar purpose. There is nothing in it left obscure for the sake of brevity, (whatever might have been the interest of more copious illustrations) and it is not yet known whether there is an intention of publishing Dr Brown's Lectures in a more ample and perfect form. Perhaps the completion of the present volume would be the best step, in the mean time. |