Blackwood's Magazine/Volume 43/Issue 270/An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness (Part 2)
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
Part II. Chap. I.
We intended at the outset, that these papers should be as little of a controversial character as possible. But a mature consideration of the state in which psychology, or the science of man, stands throughout Europe generally, and in this country in particular, leads us to deviate considerably from our original plan. We find, too, that we cannot clear out a way for the introduction of our own doctrines, without displacing, or at least endeavouring to displace, to a very great extent, the opinions usually held on the subject we are treating of. And, besides all this, we are sensible that, without having gone far enough, or completely made good our point, we have yet committed ourselves so far already in our previous strictures on the prevailing doctrine of "Mind," that there is no drawing back for us now. We must either be prepared to corroborate and illustrate our argument by many additional explanatory statements, or to incur the stigma of leaving it very incomplete, and, as many may think, very inconclusive. In order, therefore, to escape the latter of these alternatives, we will do our best to embrace and comply with the former of them. Such being our reasons, we now nail our colours to the mast, and prepare ourselves for a good deal of polemical discussion on the subject of "the human mind." And the first point to be determined is: What is the exact question at issue?
That man is a creature who displays many manifestations of reason, adapting means to the production of ends in a vast variety of ways—that he is also susceptible of a great diversity of sensations, emotions, passions, &c., which, in one form or another, keep appearing, disappearing, and reappearing within him, with few intermissions, during his transit from the cradle to the grave—is a fact which no one will dispute. This, then, is admitted equally by the ordinary metaphysician and by us. Further, the metaphysician postulates, or lays down, "mind," and not "body," as the substance in which these phenomena inhere; and this may readily enough be admitted to him. "Mind," no doubt, is merely an hypothesis, and violates one of the fundamental axioms of science—that, namely, which has been called the principle of philosophical parsimony: Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter necessitatem. [1] The necessity in this case has certainly never been made manifest. Nevertheless the hypothesis may be admitted, inasmuch as neither the admission nor the rejection of it is of the smallest conceivable importance. Like Dugald Stewart, we reject the question as to the entity in which the admitted phenomena inhere, as altogether unphilosophical; but he and we reject it upon very different grounds. He, indeed, rejected it because he did not consider it at all a true psychological question; and we do the same. But further than this, we now give, what he never gave or dreamt of giving, the reason why it cannot be viewed as a psychological question; which reason is this, that the very phenomena themselves, inherent, or supposed to be inherent, in this entity, do not, properly speaking, or otherwise than in the most indirect manner possible, constitute any part of the facts of psychology, and therefore any discussion connected with them, or with the subject in which they may inhere, is a discussion extraneous and irrelevant to the real and proper science. Further, he rejected the question as one which was above the powers of man: we scout it as one which is immeasurably beneath them. He refused to acknowledge it because he considered the human faculties weakly incompetent to it: we scorn it, because, knowing what the true business and aim of psychology is, we consider it miserably incompetent to them. In short, we pass it by with the most supreme indifference. Let the metaphysician, then, retain "the human mind" if he will, and let him make the most of it. Let him regard it as the general complement of all the phenomena alluded to. Let him consider it their subject of inherence if he pleases, and he will find that there is no danger of our quarrelling with him about that. We will even grant it to be a convenient generic term expressing the sum-total of the sensations, passions, intellectual states, &c., by which the human being is visited.
But the metaphysician does not stop here. He will not be satisfied with this admission. He goes much further, and demands a much greater concession. By "mind" he does not mean merely to express the aggregate of the "states;" that is, of the sensations, feelings, &c., which the human being may or may not be conscious of; but, somehow or other, he blends and intertwines consciousness (or the notion of self,—self-reference) with these "states," and considers this fact as their necessary, essential, invariable, or inextricable accompaniment. He thus vests in mind, besides its own states, passions, sensations, &c., the fact of the consciousness of these, and the being to whom that consciousness belongs; thus constituting "mind" into the man, and making the one of these terms convertible with the other.
Now here it is that we beg leave to enter our protest. We object most strongly to this doctrine as one which introduces into psychology a "confusion worse confounded;" as one which, if allowed to prevail, must end in obliterating everything like science, morality, and even man himself, as far as his true and peculiar character is concerned—substituting in place of him a machine, an automaton, of which the law of causality composes and regulates the puppet-strings.
This, then, is the precise point at issue between us:—The metaphysician wishes to make "mind" constitute and monopolize the whole man—we refuse to admit that "mind" constitutes any part of the true and real man whatsoever. The metaphysician confounds the consciousness of a "state of mind," and the being to whom this consciousness belongs, with the "state of mind" itself. Our great object is to keep these two distinctly and vividly asunder. This distinction is one which, as shall soon be shown, is constantly made both by common sense and by common language—a consideration which throws the presumption of truth strongly in our favour. It is one which appears to us to constitute the great leading principle upon which the whole of psychology hinges—one without the strict observance of which any science of ourselves is altogether impossible or null.
We are still, then, quite willing to vest in "mind" all the "states" of mind. But the fact of the consciousness of these states—the notion of himself as the person to whom this consciousness belongs, we insist in vesting in the man, or in that being who calls himself "I;" and in this little word expresses compendiously all the facts which really and truly belong to him. The question in dispute, and which has to be decided between the metaphysician and ourselves, may be thus worded:—He wishes to give everything unto "mind," while we wish to give unto mind the things which are mind's, and unto man the things which are man's. If we can succeed in making good our point, psychology will be considerably lightened—lightened of a useless and unmarketable cargo which has kept her almost lockfast for many generations, and which she ought never to have taken on board; for our very first act will be to fling "mind" with all its lumber overboard, and, busying ourselves exclusively with the man and his facts, we shall see whether the science will not float them. But our first problem is to vindicate and make good the distinction we have pointed out.
Before going further, let us make use of an illustration, which will, perhaps, be of some preliminary assistance in rendering our meaning, together with the point at issue, still more distinct and manifest to the reader. The mountains, let us say, which the eye beholds are the objects of its vision. In the same way the passions, sensations, "states of mind," &c., which the man is, or may be, conscious of, are the objects of his consciousness, of his conscious self. But no one ever supposes that the fact of vision is the same as the objects of vision. The former appertains to the eye; the latter constitute the mountains seen. The objects of vision may exist and do exist without the fact of vision, and do not create or enforce this fact as their necessary and invariable accompaniment. To make no discrimination between these two things would be confessedly in the highest degree absurd. It is just the same with regard to the fact of consciousness and the objects of consciousness. The fact of consciousness belongs to the man himself, to that being which calls itself "I;" and this, truly speaking, is all that belongs to him. The objects of consciousness, namely, man's passions, sensations, &c., are not, properly speaking, his at all. The fact and notion of self do not necessarily or always accompany them. They may be referred to "mind," or to what you please. They are indeed within the man's control, and it is his duty to control them. But this is not because they are himself, but only because they are not himself; because they are obscurations of himself. You may call them the false man if you choose; but if they were the true man, where would be the truthfulness of that mighty truth which says that the man waxes just in proportion as he makes his passions and his sensual feelings wane? How could this be the case if the man himself were identical with his passions and his desires? Can a creature live and thrive by suspending its own animation? Is it conceivable that a being should increase and strengthen in proportion as it is weakened and diminished? To return to our illustration: the point of it is this—the objects of consciousness, namely, the passions, emotions, &c., and Reason itself, might perfectly well exist (and in animals do exist) without any one being conscious of them, or combining with them the notion of self, just as the objects of vision exist without any eye perceiving them: and the fact of consciousness, or the fact that a being is conscious of these states, is just as distinct from the states themselves as the fact that the eye does behold mountains is distinct from the mountains which it beholds. These two things, then, the fact and the object, are in both cases distinctly separate. In the case of the eye and its objects they are never confounded; but in the case of consciousness and its objects we venture to affirm that the metaphysician has invariably confounded them. Our great primary aim is to remedy this confusion; to establish the fact of consciousness (and the being to whom it belongs) as something quite aloof from, and transcending, the objects of consciousness, namely, mind and all its states, and then to confine our science entirely to the elucidation of this fact, which will be found to be pregnant with many other facts, and with many mighty results,—neglecting the objects of it as of little importance or of none.
There is one ground, however, still left open to the metaphysician, which he may consider his impregnable stronghold or inner fortress, and which, if he can maintain it, will certainly enable him to set our strictures at defiance, and successfully to defend his tenets against all our objections. We are quite willing that he should intrench himself in this strong citadel, and, with his permission, we will place him fairly within it with our own hands—to stand or to fall. The metaphysician, fully admitting the distinction we have been insisting on, may say, "but this discrimination is itself a mere analysis of mind. The 'state' of which the being is conscious is mind; and the fact of consciousness, with the being to whom it belongs, is also mind. In a word, both terms or factors of the analysis are mind. Mind in a state of dualism perhaps; two minds, if you choose to call them so; but still susceptible of synthesis, still capable of having the one of them added to the other of them; and hence, though two, still capable of being united, and of being viewed in the amalgamation of one. Therefore," continues he, "mind, view it as you please, analyse it, or make what discriminations within it you like, is still rightly to be regarded as constituting the real and complete man, and as monopolizing the whole of that which is truly he."
If this argument be valid, we must own ourselves completely foiled, and the fight is done. For if it be true that the distinction we are contending for be merely a dead analytical discrimination, and not a real and wonder-working antithesis, a vital antagonism in human nature which, practically operating, brings about all the good and evil of man and of society; and which, working ceaselessly throughout all time, as well as in the individual breast, increases in energy the longer it maintains itself, marking distinctly the progress of the species, and advancing it on and on from that which it once was to that which it now is, and to that which it shall yet be—if it be not, we say, a distinction of this kind, but merely an inoperative "analysis of mind," then we give it up as virtually void, as altogether insignificant, and unworthy of a further thought.
But our whole system proceeds upon the reality and vitality of this distinction. It founds itself not upon any principle arising out of an analysis of mind; not upon any distinction made within mind; but upon a real antithesis to be established between what belongs, or may be admitted to belong to mind, and what does not and cannot belong to it; and therefore we will not yield up this distinction by owning it to be analytical at all. We allow the metaphysician to take all man's passions, sensations, emotions, states, or whatever else he may choose to call them, and refer them to "mind," making this the object of his research. But when he attempts to lay hands on the fact of consciousness, and to make "mind" usurp this fact together with the being to whom this fact belongs, we exclaim, "Hold! hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther; here shall thy weak hypothesis be staid." If he resists, the question must be put to the proof. Can the fact of consciousness, together with the man himself, be conceived of as vested in the object called "mind," as well as the sensations, passions, &c., which have been admitted to be vested therein? or must not this fact and the man himself be held transcendent to this object, and incapable of being objectified, or conceived of as an object at all? Unless we can make out this latter point, we shall fail in realizing, in its truth and purity, the only fact with which, in our opinion, as we have already said, psychology ought to busy itself, namely, the fact of consciousness.
We have now, then, brought the question to its narrowest possible point. Can the fact of consciousness, together with our conscious selves, be conceived of as vested in the object called "the human mind?" It was to prove the negative side of this question, and thereby to support a conclusion which forms the very life and keystone of our system, that the argument contained in a former part of this discussion was intended; and the reader may, perhaps, be now placed in a situation which will enable him to perceive its drift more clearly. We will recapitulate it very shortly, and in somewhat different words from those formerly used.
An object is that which is either really or ideally different from ourselves; or in other words, is either different in itself, or is conceived of as different by us. Suppose, now, that the metaphysician makes use of the expression of common sense and ordinary language, "my mind." He here certainly appears, at first sight, to lay down a real discrimination between himself and his mind. Whatever he may intend to say, he clearly says that there are two of them, namely, his mind and himself, the "I" (call it the ego), possessing it. In this case, "mind" may contain what it likes, but the consciousness of what it contains certainly remains with the ego. In this case mind is really destitute of consciousness. Does the metaphysician disclaim this view of the matter? Does he say that mind is really himself, and is only ideally an object to him? Then we answer, that in this case mind is ideally divested of consciousness, and if the metaphysician thinks otherwise, he imposes upon himself. For how can he make it contain consciousness without first of all ideally replacing within it himself, the ego which he had ideally severed from it. But if he does make this reinvestment, mind (his object) at once vanishes from the scene; for none of us can attribute consciousness directly to another; we can only attribute it directly to another by becoming it, and if we become it, it ceases to be another; it becomes we, that is to say, nothing but the ego is left, and we have no object either ideally or really before us. The dilemma to which the philosophers of mind are reduced is this: unless they attribute consciousness to mind, they leave out of view the most important and characteristic phenomenon of man: and if they attribute consciousness to mind, they annihilate the object of their research, in so far as the whole extent of this fact is concerned.
So much in the shape of mere abstract reasoning upon this question. It appears to us that our point is now in a fair way of being completely made out. We think that, as far as mere reasoning can do it, we have succeeded in extricating the fact of consciousness from the oppressive and obscuring envelopment of "the human mind." But our views, their correctness, and their application, still require to be brought out and enforced by many explanations and observations of fact. We now, then, descend to various statements, illustrations, and practical considerations which will probably be still more plain and convincing than anything we have yet said. These, however, we reserve for the following chapter.
Chapter II.
One of the fundamental and soundest canons of philosophy is this: never violently to subvert, but to follow gently through all its windings, any fact submitted to us by common sense, and never harshly to obliterate the language in which any such fact is expressed, or precipitately to substitute in place of it another expression, drawn, probably from some mushroom theory, and more consonant, as we may think, with truth, because apparently of a more cultivated cast. The presumption is, that the first expressions are right, and truly denote the fact, and that the secondary language, if much opposed to these, is the offspring of a philosophy erroneously reflective. In short, if we neglect the canon pointed out, the risk of our missing the real facts, and running into false speculation, is extreme. For common sense, being instinctive or nearly so, rarely errs, and its expressions, not being matured by reflection, generally contain within them, though under very obscure forms, much of the deep truth and wisdom of revelations. What though its facts and its language may often be to us, like the mirage to travellers in the desert, for a time an elusive and disappointing thing! Still let us persevere in the pursuit. The natural mirage is often the most benign provision which Heaven, in its mercy, could call up before the eyes of the wanderers through barren wastes. Ceaselessly holding out to them the promise of blessed gratification, it thus attracts onwards and onwards, till, at length, they really reach the true and water-flowing oasis, those steps which, but for this timely and continual attraction, would have sunk down and perished in despair amid the unmeasurable sands. And spread over the surface of common life, there is a moral mirage analogous to this, and equally attractive to the philosopher thirsting after truth. In pursuing it we may be often disappointed and at fault, but let us follow it in faithful hope, and it will lead us on and on unto the true and living waters at last. If we accept in a sincere and faithful spirit the facts and expressions of common sense, and refrain from tampering unduly with their simplicity, we shall perhaps find, like those fortunate ones of old who, opening hospitable doors to poor wearied wayfarers, unwittingly entertained angels, that we are harbouring the divinest truths of philosophy in the guise of these homely symbols.
It is comparatively an easy task to exclude such facts and such expressions from our consideration, and then within closed doors to arrive at conclusions at variance with common sense. But this is not the true business of philosophy. True philosophy, meditating a far higher aim, and a far more difficult task than this, throws wide her portals to the entrance of all comers,—come disguised and unpromising as they may. In other words, she accepts, as given, the great and indestructible convictions of our race, and the language in which these are expressed: and in place of denying or obliterating them, she endeavours rationally to explain and justify them; recovering by reflection steps taken in the spontaneous strength of nature by powers little more than instinctive, and seeing in clear light the operation of principles, which, in their primary acts, work in almost total darkness.
Common sense, then, is the problem of philosophy, and is plainly not to be solved by being set aside—but just as little is it to be solved by being taken for granted, or in other words, by being allowed to remain in the primary forms in which it is presented to our notice. A problem and its solution are evidently not one and the same thing; and hence, common sense, the problem of philosophy, is by no means identical, in the first instance at least, with the solution which philosophy has to supply: (a consideration which those would do well to remember who talk of the "philosophy of common sense," thus confounding together the problem and the solution.) It is only after the solution has been effected, that they can be looked upon as identical with each other. How then is this solution to be realized? How is the conversion of common sense into philosophy to be brought about? We answer, by accepting completely and faithfully the facts and expressions of common sense as given in their primitive obscurity, and then by construing them without violence, without addition, and without diminution into clearer and more intelligible forms.
In observance and exemplification, then, of this rule, let us now take up an expression frequently made use of by common sense, and which, in the preceding chapter, we had occasion to bring forward—that expression, to wit, constantly in the mouth of every one, "my mind," or let it be "my emotion," "my sensation," or any similar mode of speech; and let us ask, What does a man, thus talking the ordinary language of common life, precisely mean when he employs these expressions? The metaphysician will tell us that he does not mean what he says. We affirm that he does mean what he says. The metaphysician will tell us that he does not really make, or intend to make any discrimination or sundering between himself and his "mind;" or we should rather say his "state of mind." We affirm that he both intends to make such a separation, and does make it. The metaphysician declares that by the expression "my emotion" the man merely means that there is one of them; namely "emotion," that this is himself (the being he calls "I"), and contains and expresses every fact which this latter word denotes: and in making this averment the metaphysician roughly subverts and obliterates the language of the man. We, however, reverencing the canon we have just laid down, refrain from doing this gross violence to his expressions, because, if we were guilty of it, we should consider ourselves upon the point of falling into great errors, and of confounding a most essential distinction which has not escaped the primitive and almost instinctive good sense of all mankind—the genus metaphysicorum excepted. This tribe will not admit that in using the expression, for instance, "my sensations," the man regards himself as standing aloof from his sensations: or at any rate they hold that such a view on the part of the man is an erroneous one. They will not allow that the man himself and the fact of consciousness stand on the outside of the sphere of the "states of mind" experienced: but they fetter him down within the circle of these states, and make him and consciousness identical with them.
In opposition to this, the ordinary psychological doctrine, we, for our part, prefer to adhere to the language of common sense; believing that this represents the facts faithfully and truly, while the formulas of metaphysics misrepresent them grievously. We affirm that the natural man, in using the words "my mind," expresses and intends to express what is, and what he feels to be the fact—namely, that his conscious self, that which he calls "I" (ego), is not to be confounded, and cannot be confounded with his "mind," or the "states of mind," which are its objects. Let us observe, he merely views "mind," and uses this word, as a term expressing the aggregate or general assemblage of these states, and connects with it no hypothesis respecting its substance. On the other hand, to the ego he never thinks of applying the epithet "my." And why not? Simply because it is he; and if mind also was he, he never would dream of applying the word "my" to it either. The ego is he—not something which he possesses. He therefore never attempts to objectify it, because it will not admit of this. But he can talk rightly and intelligibly of "my sensations;" that is to say, he can tell us that this ego is visited by various sensations, because he feels that the ego—that is, himself—is different from these sensations. At any rate, he never, of his own accord, confounds himself and his sensations or states of mind together. He never, in his natural state, uses the word "mind" as convertible with the word "I;" and if he did so, he would not be intelligible to his species. They would never know that he meant himself; and simply for this reason, that the fact of self-reference or consciousness is not contained or expressed in the word "mind," and cannot, indeed, be denoted by any word in the third person. It has been reserved for the "metaphysics of mind" to introduce into thought and language a confusion which man's natural understanding has always steered clear of.
We have found, then, that this distinction between the man himself (that called ego) and the states of mind which he is conscious of, obtains in the language of common sense, and we do not feel ourselves entitled to subvert or to neglect it. But to leave it precisely as we found it, would be to turn it to no account whatsoever, and would allow the metaphysician still to triumph in our failure to accomplish what we have declared to be the true end and business of philosophy. The distinction is espoused by common sense, and is thrown out on the very surface of ordinary language: therefore the presumption that it is correct is in its favour; but it still remains to be philosophically vindicated, and made good. Let us, then, accept it faithfully as given; and gently construing it into a clearer form, let us see whether every fact connected with it under its philosophic aspect will not prove it to be the most important and valid of all possible discriminations.
To mark this distinction, this conviction and expression of common sense, by a philosophical formula, let us suppose a line terminating in two opposite poles. In the one of these we will vest "mind," that is, the whole assemblage of the various states or changes experienced—all the feelings, passions, sensations, &c. of man, and in the other of them we will vest the fact of consciousness, and the man himself calling himself "I." Now, we admit, in the first instance, that these two poles are mere postulates, and that our postulation of them can only be justified and made good that they are mutually repulsive:—by the fact that there is a reciprocal antithesis or antagonism between them, and between all that each of them contains: or, in other words, we must be borne out by the fact, that an increase of intensity at the one pole is always compensated by a corresponding decrease of intensity at the other pole—and vice versa. For if, on the contrary, it should appear that these two poles agree and act so harmoniously together, that the vividness experienced at the one pole (say that in which sensation, &c., reside) is answered by, a proportional vividness at the opposite pole of consciousness—and that a depression at this latter pole again takes place in accordance with a diminished intensity at the former pole: in short, if it should appear that these two poles, instead of mutually extinguishing, mutually strengthen each other's light—then we must own that the antithesis we are endeavouring to establish is virtually void and erroneous: that sensation and consciousness are really identical, and that the two poles are in fact not two, but only one. In a word, we will own that the distinction we have been all along fighting for does not exist, and that the ordinary doctrine of psychology upon this head is faultless, and beyond dispute.
This point, however, is not to be settled by speculation, or by abstract reasoning. What says the fact? The fact is notorious to every one except metaphysicians, who have seldom paid much attention to this or any other fact, that the degree of our consciousness or self-reference always exists in an inverse ratio to the degree of intensity of any of our sensation's, passions, emotions, &c.; and that consciousness is never so effectually depressed—or, perhaps, we may say, never so totally obliterated within us, as when we are highly transported by the vividness of any sensation, or absorbed in the violence of any passion. While, on the other hand, returning consciousness, or increasing self-reference, has always the effect of deadening the sensation and suspending the passion, until at length, when it reaches its ultimatum, the sensation or passion becomes totally extinct. This is decidedly the fact, and there is no denying it. Look at a human being immersed in the swinish gratifications of sense. See here how completely the man is lost in the animal. Swallowed up in the pleasurable sensations of his palate, he is oblivious of everything else, and consciousness sinks into abeyance for a time. The sensation at the one pole monopolizes him, and therefore the consciousness at the other pole does not come into play. He does not think of himself—he does not combine the notion of himself with the sensation, the enjoyment of which is enslaving him. Again, look at another man shaken by wrath, as a tree is shaken by the wind. Here, too, the passion reigns paramount, and everything else is forgotten. Consciousness is extinguished; and hence the expression of the poet—Ira brevis furor est—"Rage is a brief insanity"—is strictly and pathologically true; because consciousness, the condition upon which all sanity depends, is for the time absent from the man. Hence, too, the ordinary phrase, that rage transports a man out of himself, is closely and philosophically correct. Properly interpreted, it means that the man is taken completely out of the pole where consciousness abides, and vested entirely in the opposite pole where passion dwells; or rather we should say that as a man he is extinct, and lives only as a machine. In both of these cases the men lose their personality. They are played upon by a foreign agency.
"Infortunati nimium sua si mala norint!"
But as yet they know not how mean and how miserable they are. Consciousness must return to them first, and only they themselves can bring it back; and when it does return, the effect of its very first approach is to lower the temperature of the sensation and of the passion. The men are not now wholly absorbed in the state that prevailed at the sensual and passionate pole. The balance is beginning to right itself. They have originated an act of their own, which has given them some degree of freedom; and they now begin to look down upon their former state as upon a state of intolerable slavery; and ever as this self-reference of theirs waxes, they look down upon that state as more and more slavish still, until at length, the balance being completely reversed and lying over on the other side, consciousness is again enthroned, the passion and the sensation are extinguished, and the men feel themselves to be completely free.
The first general expression, then, of this great law (which, however, may require much minute attention to calculate all its subordinate forces and their precise balances) is this:—When passion, or any state of mind at the one pole, is at its maximum, consciousness is at its minimum—this maximum being sometimes so great as absolutely to extinguish consciousness while it continues; and, vice versa, when consciousness is at its maximum, the passion, or whatever the state of mind at the opposite pole may be, is at its minimum—the maximum being in this case, too, sometimes so great as to amount to a total suspension of the passion, &c. What important consequences does the mere enunciation of this great law suggest! In particular, what a firm and intelligible basis does it afford to the great superstructure of morality! What light does it carry down into the profoundest recesses of duty! Man's passions may be said to be the origin of all human wickedness. What more important fact, then, can there be than this, that the very act of consciousness, simple as it may seem, brings along with it, to a considerable extent, the suspension of any passion which may be tyrannizing over us; and that, as the origination of this act is our own, so is it in our own power to heighten and increase its lustre as we please, even up to the highest degree of self-reflection, where it triumphs over passion completely? These matters, however, shall be more fully unfolded when we come to speak of the consequences of the fact of consciousness.[2]
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 studying "the human mind," we encounter, whichever way we turn, mere counterfeit, or else irrelevant phenomena, instead of falling in with the true and peculiar phenomena of man; or shall we say that consciousness, like the apples in the gardens of the Hesperides, grows on the boughs of humanity, and grows nowhere else, and that while it is the practical duty of all men, as well as the great aim of philosophy, to grasp and realize this rare and precious fact, it has ever been the practice of "the human mind," like the dragon of old, to guard this phenomena from the scrutiny of mankind; to keep them ignorant or oblivious of its existence; to beat them back from its avenues into the mazes of practical as well as speculative error, by raising its blinding and deceitful aspect against any hand that would pluck the golden fruitage.
Does the reader still desire to be informed with the most precise distinctness why the fact of consciousness, and we ourselves, cannot be conceived of as properly and entirely vested in "mind"? Then let him attend once more to the fact, when we repeat what we have already stated: perilling our whole doctrine upon the truth of our statement as fact, and renouncing speculation altogether. In a former part of this discussion we illustrated the distinction between the objects of consciousness (the passions, namely, and all the other changes or modifications we experience) and the fact of consciousness, by the analogous distinction subsisting between the objects of vision and the fact of vision. It was plain that the objects of vision might exist, and did exist, without giving birth to, or being in any way accompanied by, the fact of vision; and in the same way it was apparent that the objects of consciousness by no means brought along with them the fact of consciousness as their necessary and invariable accompaniment. But we have now to observe that this illustration is not strong enough, and that the two terms of it are not sufficiently contrasted for our purpose. Or, in other words, we now remark that in the case of consciousness and its objects, the rupture or antagonism between the two is far stronger and more striking than in the case of vision and its objects. It is not the tendency of the objects of vision, on the one hand, to quench the vision which regards them; it is not, on the other hand, the tendency of the fact of vision to obliterate the objects at which it looks. Therefore, though the fact of vision and the objects of vision are distinctly separate, yet their disunion is not so complete as that of the fact of consciousness and the objects of consciousness, the natural tendency of which is, on both sides, to act precisely in the manner spoken of, and between which a struggle of the kind pointed out constantly subsists. This, then, we proclaim to be the fact (and upon this fact we ground the essential distinction or antithesis between mind, i.e., the complement of the objects of consciousness, and the fact of consciousness itself), that mind, in all its states, without a single exception, so far from facilitating or bringing about the development of consciousness, actually exerts itself unceasingly and powerfully to prevent consciousness from coming into existence, and to extinguish it when it has come into operation. The fact, as we have said before, is notorious, that the more any state of mind (a sensation or whatever else it may be) is developed, the less is there a consciousness or reference to self of that state of mind; and this fact proves how essentially the two are opposed to each other; because if they agreed, or acted in concert with one another, it would necessarily follow that an increase in the one of them would be attended by a corresponding increase in the other of them. How, then, can we possibly include, or conceive of as included, under "mind," a fact or act which it is the tendency of "mind" in all its states to suppress?
Is it here objected that unless these states of mind existed, consciousness would never come into operation, and that therefore it falls to be considered as dependent upon them? In this objection the premises are perfectly true, but the inference is altogether false. It is true that man's consciousness would not develop itself unless certain varieties of sensation, reason, &c., became manifest within him; but it does not by any means follow from this that consciousness is the natural sequent or harmonious accompaniment of these. The fact is, that consciousness does not come into operation in consequence of these states; but in spite of them: it does not come into play to increase and foster these states, but only actively to suspend, control, or put a stop to them. This, then, is the reason why consciousness cannot develop itself without their previous manifestation; namely, because unless they existed there would be nothing for it to combat, to weaken, or to destroy. Its occupation or office would be gone. There would be nothing for it to exert itself against. Its antagonist force not having been given, there would be no occasion for its existence. This force (the power existing at what we have called the mental pole) does not create consciousness, but as soon as this force comes into play, consciousness creates itself, and, by creating itself, suspends or diminishes the energy existing at that pole. This fact showing that consciousness is in nothing passive, but is ab origine essentially active, places us upon the strongest position which, as philosophers fighting for human freedom, we can possibly occupy; and it is only by the maintenance of this position that man's liberty can ever be philosophically vindicated and made good. In truth, possessing this fact, we hold in our hands the profoundest truth in all psychology; the most awful and sublime truth connected with the nature of man. Our present mention of it is necessarily very brief and obscure: but we will do our best to clear it up and expound it fully when we come to discuss the problem: how does consciousness come into operation? We will then start man free. We will show that he brings himself into existence, not indeed as a being, but as a human being; not as an existence, but as an existence calling itself "I," by an act of absolute and essential freedom. We will empty his true and real being of all passivity whatsoever, in opposition to those doctrines of a false, inert, and contradictory philosophy, which making him at first, and in his earliest stage, the passive recipient of the natural effluences of things—the involuntary effect of some foreign cause—seeks afterwards to engraft freedom upon him;—a vain, impracticable, and necessarily unsuccessful endeavour, as the whole history of philosophy, from first to last, has shown.
We are now able to render a distinct answer to the question: What is the precise effect of our argument on the subject of the human mind? Its precise effect and bearing is to turn us to the study of fact—of a clear and a peculiar fact—from the contemplation of an object which is either an hypothesis, or else no object at all (not even an hypothesis but a contradiction), or else an irrelevant object of research, and one which cannot by any conceivability contain the fact which it is our business to investigate. Even granting the human mind to be a real object, still we affirm that our argument, and the state of the fact, show the necessity of our realizing and viewing consciousness as something altogether distinct from and independent of it—inasmuch as it is the tendency of every modification of mind to keep this fact or act in abeyance under their supremacy so long as that supremacy continues—and, therefore, it never can be the true and relevant business of philosophy to attend to this object (however real) when engaged in the study of man; because in doing so, philosophy would necessarily miss and overlook the leading, proper, and peculiar phenomenon of his being. The fact of consciousness, expressed in the word "I," and its accompanying facts, such as the direct and vital antithesis subsisting between it and passion, sensation, &c.—these are the only facts which psychology ought to regard. This science ought to discard from its direct consideration every fact which is not peculiarly man's. It ought to turn away its attention from the facts subsisting at what we have called the sensitive, passionate, and rational pole of humanity; because these facts are not, properly speaking, the true and absolute property of humanity at all; and it ought to confine its regards exclusively to the pole in which consciousness is vested; and, above all things, it ought to have nothing to do with speculations concerning any transcendent substance (mind, for instance) in which these phenomena may be imagined to inhere.
Let us conclude this chapter by shortly summing up our whole argument and its results, dividing our conclusions into two distinct heads: 1st, concerning the "science of the human mind;" and 2d, concerning the "human mind" itself.
In the first place, does the science of the human mind profess to follow the analogy of the natural sciences? It does. Then it must conform itself to the conditions upon which they depend. Now, the primary condition upon which the natural sciences depend and proceed, is the distinction between a subject and an object; or, in other words, between a Being enquiring, and a Being enquired into. Without such a discrimination they could not move a step. Very well: man in studying himself follows the same method. He divides himself into subject and object. There is himself, the subject enquiring, and there is "the human mind," the object enquired into. There is here, then, at the outset, distinctly two. The principal condition of the enquiry demands that there shall be two. We will suppose then the science of the "object enquired into" to be complete. And now we turn to the man, and say, "Give us a science of the subject enquiring." He answers that he has already done so—that, in this case, the subject and object are identical—and in saying this is it not plain that he violates the very condition upon which his science professed to proceed and to depend—namely, the distinction between subject and object? He now gives up this distinction. He confounds the two together. He makes one of them: and the total confusion and obliteration of his science is the consequence. Does he again recur to the distinction? then we keep probing him with one or other horn of our dilemma, which we will thus express for the behoof of the "philosophers of mind." Do you, in your science of man, profess to lay down and to found upon the distinction between the subject (yourselves) and the object (the human mind), or do you not? If you do, then we affirm that while studying the object you necessarily keep back in the subject the most important fact connected with man, namely, the fact of consciousness; and that you cannot place this fact in the object of your research without doing away the distinction upon which you founded. But if you do away this distinction, you renounce and disregard the vital and indispensable condition upon which physical science depends: and what, then, becomes of your science as a research conducted, as you profess it to be, upon the principles of physical investigation? You may, indeed, still endeavour to accommodate your research to the spirit of physical enquiry by talking of a subject-object; but this is a wretched subterfuge, and the word you here make use of must ever carry a contradiction upon its very front. You talk of what is just as inconceivable to physical science as a square circle or a circular square. By "subject," physical science understands that which is not an "object," but something opposed to an object, and by "object," that which is not a "subject," but something opposed to a subject: and can form no conception of these two as identical. But by "subject-object" you mean a subject which becomes an object—i.e., its own object. But this is inconceivable, or, at any rate, is only conceivable on this ground, that the subject keeps back in itself, itself and the consciousness of what is passing in the object; because if it invests itself, and the fact of consciousness in the object, the object from that moment ceases to be an object, and becomes reconverted into a subject, that is, into one's self without an object. This, at least, is quite plain: that in talking of a subject-object, you abandon the essential distinction upon which the physical sciences found: and the ruin of your science as a physical research (that is, as a legitimate research in the only sense in which you have declared a research can be legitimate) is the result.
The difficulties, then, in the way of the establishment of a science of "the human mind," are insuperable. Its weakness and futility are of a twofold character. It starts with an hypothesis, and yet cannot maintain this hypothesis, or remain consistent with it for a single moment. Man makes a hypothetical object of himself, and calls this "the human mind;" and then, in order to invest it with a certain essential phenomenon, he is compelled every instant to unmake it as an object, and to convert back again into a subject that is into himself—a confusion of the most perplexing kind—a confusion which, so long as it is persisted in, must render everything like a science of man altogether hopeless. Such being the state of things, it is indeed no wonder that despair should have settled down upon the present condition, the prospect, and the retrospect of psychological research.
In the second place, let us say one or two words on the subject of "the human mind," itself, before we have done with it. Let us suppose it to be not an hypothesis, but a reality. We will further suppose that all the forms, states, or modifications of this real substance have been separately enumerated and classified in distinct orders; and now we will imagine the question put,—Would not a science of this kind, and of this substance, be still worth something? Would it not, in fact, be the true science of human nature? We answer—No. Whatever might be its value in other respects, we aver, that, as a science of men, it would be altogether worthless and false. And for this reason, because the object of our research here, not only does not contain the proper and peculiar fact of man, namely, the fact of consciousness, but it contains, as we have seen, an order of phenomena which tend unceasingly to overcloud, keep down, and extinguish this fact. In studying this object, therefore, with the view of constructing a science of man out of our examination of it, we should be following a course doubly vicious and misleading. We should not only be studying facts among which consciousness is not to be found, but we should be studying and attaching a scientific value to facts—esteeming them, too, to be characteristic of man's proper nature—facts which actually rise up as obstacles to prevent consciousness (that is, his proper nature and peculiar fact) from coming into manifestation. If, then, we would establish a true science of man, there is no other course open to us than this, to abandon, in the first instance, every consideration of "the human mind," whether it be an hypothesis and a reality, together with all its phenomena, and then to confine our attention closely and devoutly to the examination of the great and anomalous fact of human consciousness.
And truly this fact is well worthy of our regard, and one which will worthily reward our pains. It is a fact of most surpassing wonder; a fact prolific in sublime results. Standing aloof as much as possible from our acquired and inveterate habits of thought; divesting ourselves as much as possible of our natural prepossessions, and of that familiarity which has blunted the edge of astonishment, let us consider what we know to be the fact; namely, that existence, combined with intelligence and passion in many instances, but unaccompanied by any other fact, is the general rule of creation. Knowing this, would it not be but an easy step for us to conclude that it is also the universal rule of creation; and would not such a conclusion be a step naturally taken? Finding this, and nothing more than this, to be the great fact "in heaven and on earth, and in the waters under the earth," would it not be rational to conclude that it admitted of no exception? Such, certainly, would be the natural inference, and in it there would be nothing at all surprising. But suppose that when it was on the point of being drawn, there suddenly, and for the first time, started up in a single Being, a fact at variance with this whole analogy of creation, and contradicting this otherwise universal rule; we ask, would not this be a fact attractive and wonderful indeed? Would not every attempt to bring this Being under the great general rule of the universe be at once, and most properly, abandoned? would not this new fact be held exclusively worthy of scientific consideration, as the feature which distinguished its possessor with the utmost clearness from all other creatures, and as that which would be sure to lead the observer to a knowledge of the true and essential character of the being manifesting it? Would not, in fine, a world entirely new be here opened up to research? And now, if we would really behold such a fact, we have but to turn to ourselves, and ponder over the fact of consciousness; for consciousness is precisely that marvellous, that unexampled fact which we have been here supposing and shadowing forth.
"I never could content my contemplation," says Sir Thomas Browne, "with those general pieces of wonder, the flux and reflux of the sea, the increase of the Nile, the conversion of the needle to the north, and have studied to match and parallel those in the more obvious and neglected pieces of nature which, without farther travel, I can do, in the cosmography of myself. We carry with us the wonders we seek without us. There is all Africa and her prodigies in us. We are that bold and adventurous piece of nature, which he that studies wisely learns in a compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece or endless volume.[3]" Let us observe, however, that in studying man it is our duty, as philosophers, and if we would perceive and understand his real wonders, to study him in his sound and normal state, and not in any of the eccentricities or aberrations of his nature. Next to physiological metaphysics, pathological metaphysics, or the study of man as he appears when divested of his usual intellectual health, are the most profitless and false. In preference to such things, it were better for us to go at once and study what Sir Thomas Browne so unceremoniously condemns as far less worthy of admiration than the great wonders of ourselves—"the increase of Nile,"—"the magnetic needle,"—"Africa and her prodigies," her magicians, and her impostures. Let us then turn to better things—to the contemplation of a fact in human nature, common indeed, but really miraculous—common, inasmuch as it is the universal privilege of man to evolve it; but miraculous inasmuch as it directly violates (as shall be shown) the great and otherwise universal law which regulates the whole universe besides:—we mean of the law of causality—Oh ye admirers of somnambulism, and other depraved and anomalous conditions of humanity! ye worshippers at the shrine of a morbid and deluded wonder! ye seers of marvels where there are none, and ye blindmen to the miracles which really are! tell us no more of powers put forth, and processes unconsciously carried on within the dreaming soul, as if these were one-millionth part so extraordinary and inexplicable as even the simplest conscious on-goings of our waking life. In the wonders ye tell us of, there is comparatively no mystery at all. That man should feel and act, and bring about all his operations without consciousness, is just what we would naturally and at once expect from the whole analogy of creation, and the wide dominion of the law of cause and effect. And wherever he is observed to act thus, he is just to be looked upon as having fallen back under the general rule. But come ye forward and explain to us the true miracle of man's being, how he ever, first of all, escaped therefrom, and how he acts, and feels, and goes through intelligent processes with consciousness, and thus stands alone, a contradiction in nature, the free master and maker of himself, in a world where everything else is revolved, blind and unconscious, in the inexorable mechanism of fate.
- ↑ That is—entities are not to be multiplied without necessity; or, in other words, unless it should appear that the phenomena observed cannot possibly inhere in any already admitted entity. Dugald Stewart's reasoning on this subject is curious, not because the argument, or that which it regards, is of the smallest interest or importance in itself, but as exhibiting the grossest misconception of the question that ever was palmed off upon an unwary reader. "Matter" must be owned to be the first in the field. We are conversant and intimate with it long before we know anything about "mind." When the immaterialist or mentalist, then, comes forward, it is his business either to displace matter entirely, substituting "mind" in the place of it; or else to rear up alongside of it, this, the antagonist entity for which he contends. If he attempts the former, he involves himself in a mere play of words. If he maintains that all the material phenomena are in fact mental phenomena, he does nothing but quibble. The author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm has grievously mistaken the potency of this position. [See The physical (!) theory of another life, p. 14.] It is plain, we say, that in this case the immaterialist resolves himself into a mere innovator upon the ordinary language of men. He merely gives the name of "mental" to that which other people have chosen to call "material." The thing remains precisely what it was. If, on the other hand, he embraces the latter of the alternatives offered to him, and, without supplanting matter, maintains "mind" to be co-ordinate with it—then he is bound to show a necessity for his "multiplication of entities." He is bound to prove that the phenomena with which he is dealing, are incompatible with, or cannot possibly inhere in the entity already in the field. But how is such a proof possible or even conceivable? Let us see what the immaterialist makes of it. It is his object to prove by reasoning that a certain series of phenomena cannot inhere in a certain admitted substance "matter," and must, therefore be referred to a different substance "mind." Now all reasoning is either a priori or a posteriori. If he reasons in the former of these ways; he forms a priori such a conception of matter that it would involve a contradiction to suppose that the phenomena occasioning the dispute should inhere in it—he first of all fixes for himself a notion of matter, as of something with which certain phenomena are incompatible—something in which they cannot inhere—and then from this conception he deduces the inference that these phenomena are incompatible with matter, or cannot inhere in it—a petitio principii almost too glaring to require notice.—Or does he reason upon this question a posteriori? In this case he professes to found upon no a priori conception of matter, but to be guided entirely by experience. But experience can only inform us what phenomena do or do not inhere in any particular substance; and can tell us nothing about their abstract compatibility or incompatibility with it. We may afterwards infer such compatibility or incompatibility if we please, but we must first of all know what the fact is—or else we may be abstractly arguing a point one way, while the facts go to establish it in the opposite way. In reasoning, therefore, from experience, the question is not, can certain phenomena inhere in a particular substance, or can they not? but we must first of all ask and determine this: do they inhere in it, or do they not? And this, then, now comes to be the question with which the immaterialist, reasoning a posteriori, has to busy himself. Is the negative side of this question to be admitted to him without proof? Are we to permit him to take for granted, that these phenomena do not inhere in matter?—Most assuredly not. He must prove this to be the case, or else he accomplishes nothing—and yet how is it possible for him to prove it? He can only prove it by showing the phenomena to be incompatible with matter—for if he once admits the phenomena to be compatible with matter, then his postulatum of mind is at once disqualified from being advanced. He has given up the attempt to make manifest that necessity for "mind," which it was incumbent upon him to show.
It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to the very life of his argument that he should stickle for the incompatibility of these phenomena with matter. To prove that these phenomena do not inhere in matter, he must show that they cannot inhere in it: This is the only line of argument which is open to him. But then how is he to make good this latter point? We have already seen the inevitable and powerless perplexity in which he lands himself in attempting it. He must, as before, adopt one of two courses. He must either recur to his old a priori trick of framing for himself, first of all, such a conception of matter, that it would be contradictory to suppose the phenomena capable of inhering in it, and then of deducing their incompatibility or contradictoriness from this conception—a mode of proof which certainly shows that the phenomena cannot inhere in his conception of matter, but which by no means proves that they cannot inhere in matter itself. Or he may follow, as before, an a posteriori course. But here, too, we have already shown that such a procedure is impossible, without his taking for granted the very point in dispute. We have already shown that, in adhering to experience, the immaterialist must first of all go and ascertain the fact respecting these phenomena—do they inhere in matter, or do they not—before he is entitled to predicate that they cannot inhere in it, lest while he is steering his argument in one direction, the fact should be giving him the lie in another. We sum up our statement thus: He wishes to prove that certain phenomena cannot inhere in matter. In proving this he is brought to postulate the fact that these phenomena do not inhere in matter; and then, when pressed for a proof of this latter fact, he can only make it good by reasserting that they cannot inhere in matter, in support of which he is again forced to recur to his old statement that they do not inhere in matter,—an instance of circular reasoning of the most perfect kind imaginable. Thus the immaterialist has not given us, and cannot possibly give us any argument at all upon the subject. He has not given us the proof which the "necessity" of the case called for, and which, in admitting the principle of parsimony, he pledged himself to give as the only ground upon which his postulation of a new substance could be justified. He has, after all, merely supplied us with the statement that certain phenomena do not inhere in matter, which is quite sufficiently met on the part of the materialist, by the counter statement that these phenomena do inhere in matter. In struggling to supply us with more than this, his reason is strangled in the trammels of an inexorable petitio principii, from which it cannot shake itself loose: while the materialist looks on perfectly quiescent. All this, however, Mr Stewart totally misconceives. He speaks as if the materialist (of course we mean such as understand and represent the argument rightly) took, or were called upon to take, an active part in this discussion. He imagines that the onus probandi, the task of proving the phenomena to inhere in matter, and of disproving "mind," lay upon his shoulders. He talks of the "scheme of materialism" (Elements, p. 4), as if the scheme of materialism, supposing that there is one, did not exist, merely because the scheme of immaterialism cannot, as we have seen, bring itself into existence. If the immaterialist cannot (as we have proved he cannot, logically) set up the entity of mind as a habitation for certain houseless phenomena, will he not permit the materialist charitably to give them shelter in the existing entity of matter? Surely this is a stretch of philosophical intolerance, on the part of the immaterialist, not to be endured. He cannot house these phenomena himself, nor will he permit others to house them. Before concluding this note, which has already run too far, we may point out to the logical student another instance of Mr Stewart's vicious logic contained in the paragraph referred to. We will be short "Mind and matter," says he, "considered as objects of human study, are essentially different,"—that is, are different in their essence. Now turn to the last line of this paragraph, and read—"We are totally ignorant of the essence of either." That is to say, being totally ignorant of the essence of two things, we are yet authorised in saying that these two things are essentially different, or different in their essence. Now, difference being in the opinion of most people the condition of knowledge, or, in other words, our knowledge of a thing being based upon the difference observed between it and other things, and our ignorance of a thing being generally the consequence of its real or apparent identity with other things, it appears to us that our ignorance of the essence of these two things (if it did not altogether disqualify us from speaking) should rather have induced us to say that they were essentially the same; or, at any rate, could never justify us in predicating their essential difference as Mr Stewart has done. If we know nothing at all about their essence, how can we either affirm or deny anything with respect to that essence? From all that we have here said, it will not be inferred by any rational thinker that we are a materialist, and just as little that we are an immaterialist. In point of fact we are neither; and if the reader does not understand how this can be, we can only explain it by repeating that we regard the whole question in itself as silly and frivolous in the extreme, and only worthy of notice as marking certain curious windings of thought in the history of logic. - ↑ Dr Chalmers has a long chapter in his Moral Philosophy (Chap. II.) on the effect which consciousness has in obliterating the state or mind upon which it turns its eye. But to what account does he turn his observation of this fact? He merely notices it as attaching a peculiar difficulty to the study of the phenomena of mind. It does indeed. It attaches so peculiar a difficulty to the study of these phenomena, that we wonder the Doctor was not led by this consideration to perceive that these phenomena were no longer the real and important facts of the science; but that the fact of consciousness, together with the consequences it brought along with it, and nothing else, truly was so. Again, on the other hand, this fact attaches so peculiar a facility to the study of morality, that we are surprised the Doctor did not avail himself of its assistance in explaining the laws and character of duty. But how does Dr Chalmers "get quit of this difficulty"? If the phenomena of mind disappear as soon as consciousness looks at them—how do you think he obviates the obstacle in the way of science? Why, by emptying human nature of consciousness altogether; or, as he informs us, "by adopting Dr Thomas Brown's view of consciousness, who makes this act to be," as Dr Chalmers says, "a brief act of memory." Whether this means that consciousness is a short act of memory, or an act of memory following shortly after the "state" remembered, we are at a loss to say; but at any rate, we here have consciousness converted into memory. For we presume that there is no difference in kind, no distinction at all between an act of memory which is brief, and an act of memory which is not brief. Thus consciousness is obliterated. Man is deprived of the notion of 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.
- ↑ Religio Medici, § 15.