Chapter III.
What then is the precise effect of our argument against the prevailing doctrine of the "human mind"? If the word "mind" be used merely to express the general group, or assemblage of passions, emotions, intellectual states, and other modifications of being, which both man and the animal creation are subject to, we have no objections whatever to the use of the term. If it should further please the metaphysician to lay down "mind" as a distinct entity to which these various states or changes are to be referred, we shall not trouble ourselves with quarrelling with this hypothesis either. All we say is, that the man himself, and the true and proper facts of the man's nature, are not to be found here. In the case of animals, we shall admit that "mind," that is, some particular modification of passion, sensation, reason, and so forth, constitutes, and is convertible while it lasts with the true and proper being of the animal subject to that change; because here there is nothing over and above the ruling passion of the time. There is no distinction made between it (the state) experienced, and itself (the animal) experiencing. The animal is wholly monopolized by the passion. The two are identical. The animal does not stand aloof in any degree from the influence to which it is subject. There is not in addition to the passion, or whatever the state of mind may be, a consciousness, or reference to self of that particular state. In short, there is no self at all in the case. There is nothing but a machine, or thing agitated and usurped by a kind of tyrannous agency, just as a reed is shaken by the wind. The study, then, of the laws and facts of passion, sensation, reason, &c., in animals might be a rational and legitimate enough pursuit; because, in their case, there is no fact of a more important and peculiar character for us to attend to. These phenomena might be said to constitute the proper facts of animal psychology.
The total absorption of the creature in the particular change or "state" experienced—which we have just noticed as the great fact occurring in the animal creation—sometimes occurs in the case of man also; and when it does take place in him, he and they are to be considered exactly upon a par. But it is the characteristic peculiarity of man's nature that this monopolization of him by some prevailing "state of mind" does not always, or indeed often, happen. In his case there is generally something over and above the change by which he is visited, and this unabsorbed something is the fact of consciousness, the notion and the reality of himself as the person experiencing the change. This fact is that which controls and makes him independent of the state experienced, and in the event of the state running into excess, it leaves him not the excuse or apology (which animals have) that he was its victim and its slave. This phenomenon stands conspicuously aloof, and beside it stands man conspicuously aloof from all the various modifications of being by which he may be visited. This phenomenon is the great and leading fact of human psychology. And we now affirm, that the enquirer who should neglect it after it had been brought up before him, and should still keep studying "the human mind," would be guilty of the grossest dereliction of his duty as a philosopher, and would follow a course altogether irrelevant; inasmuch, as passing by the phenomenon peculiar to man, he would be busying himself at the best (supposing "mind" to be something more than hypothesis) with facts which man possesses in common with other creatures, and which must of course be, therefore, far inferior in importance and scientific value to the anomalous fact exclusively his. In study-
himself. He no longer is a self at all, or capable of any self-reference. From having been a person, he becomes a mere thing; and is left existing and going through various acts of intelligence, just like the animals around him, which exist and perform many intelligent acts without being aware of their existence, without possessing any personality, or taking any account to themselves of their accomplishments.
