through his mind, or supposes that when the rapidity of the process becomes so great that he is unable to recollect the various steps of it, he obtains the result by a sort of inspiration. This last supposition would be perfectly analogous to Dr. Hartley's doctrine concerning the nature of our habitual exertions. "The only plausible objection which, I think, can be offered to the principles I have endeavored to establish on this subject, is founded on the astonishing and almost incredible rapidity they necessarily suppose in our intellectual operations. When a person, for example, reads aloud, there must, according to this doctrine, be a separate volition preceding the articulation of every letter; and it has been found by actual trial, that it is possible to pronounce about two thousand letters in a minute. Is it reasonable to suppose that the mind is capable of so many different acts, in an interval of time so very inconsiderable? "With respect to this objection, it may be observed, in the first place, that all arguments against the foregoing doctrine with respect to our habitual exertions, in so far as they are founded on the inconceivable rapidity which they suppose in our intellectual operations, apply equally to the common doctrine concerning our perception of distance by the eye. But this is not all. To what does the supposition amount which is considered as so incredible? Only to this, that the mind is so formed as to be able to carry on certain intellectual processes in intervals of time too short to be estimated by our faculties; a supposition which, so far from being extravagant, is supported by the analogy of many of our most certain conclusions in natural philosophy. The discoveries made by the microscope have laid open to our senses a world of wonders, the existence of which hardly any man would have admitted upon inferior evidence; and have gradually prepared the way for those physical speculations which explain some of the most extraordinary phænomena of nature by means of modifications of matter far too subtile for the examination of our organs. Why, then, should it be considered as unphilosophical, after having demonstrated the existence of various intellectual processes which escape our attention in consequence of their rapidity, to carry the supposition a little farther, in order to bring under the known laws of the human constitution a class of mental operations which must otherwise remain perfectly inexplicable? Surely our ideas of time are merely relative, as well as our ideas of extension; nor is there any good reason for doubting that, if our powers of attention and memory were more perfect than they are, so as to give us the same advantage in examining rapid events, which the microscope gives for examining minute portions of extension, The principle of Stewart's theory already shown to involve contradictions. But here specially refuted. they would enlarge our views with respect to the intellectual world, no less than that instrument has with respect to the material." 1 This doctrine of Mr. Stewart, that our acts of knowledge are made up of an infinite number of acts of attention, that is, of various acts of concentrated consciousness, there being required a separate act of attention for every minimum possible of knowledge, I have already shown you, by various examples, to involve contradictions. In the present instance, its admission would constrain our assent to the most monstrous conclusions. Take the case of a person reading. Now, all of you must have experienced, if ever under the necessity of reading aloud, that, if the matter be uninteresting, your thoughts, while you are going on in the performance of your task, are wholly abstracted from the book and its subject, and you are perhaps deeply occupied in a train of serious meditation. Here the process of reading is performed without interruption, and with the most punctual accuracy; and, at the same time, the process of meditation is carried on without distraction or fatigue. Now this, on Mr. Stewart's doctrine, would seem impossible; for what does his theory suppose? It supposes that separate acts of concentrated consciousness or attention, are bestowed on each least movement in either process. But be the velocity of the mental operations what it may, it is impossible to conceive how transitions between such contrary operations could be kept up for a continuance without fatigue and distraction, even if we throw out of account the fact that the acts of attention to be effectual must be simultaneous, which on Mr. Stewart's theory is not allowed. We could easily give examples of far more complex operations; but this, with what has been previously said, I deem sufficient to show, that we must either resort to the first theory, which, as nothing but the assumption of an occult and incomprehensible principle, in fact explains nothing, or adopt the theory that there are acts of mind so rapid and minute as to elude the ken of consciousness. I shall now say something of the history of this opinion. It is a curious fact that Locke, in the passage I read to you a few days ago, attributes this opinion to the Cartesians, and he thinks it was employed by them to support their doctrine of the ceaseless activity of mind. In this, as in many other points of the Car History of the doctrine of unconscious mental modifications. 1 Elements, vol. i. chap. ii.; Works, vol. ii. p. 127-131. 2 Essay on Human Understanding, book ii. c. 1, § 18, 19. The Cartesians are intended though not expressly mentioned. - ED. tesian philosophy, he is, however, wholly wrong. On the contrary, the Cartesians made consciousness the essence of thought;1 and their assertion that the mind always thinks is, in their language, precisely tantamount to the assertion that the mind is always conscious. Leibnitz the first to proclaim this doctrine. But what was not maintained by the Cartesians, and even in opposition to their doctrine, was advanced by Leibnitz.2 To this great philosopher belongs the honor of having originated this opinion, and of having supplied some of the strongest arguments in its support. He was, however, unfortunate in the terms which he employed to propound his doctrine. The latent modifications, the unconscious activities of mind, he denominated obscure ideas, obscure representations, perceptions without apperception or consciousness, insensible perceptions, etc. In this he violated the universal usage of language. For perception, and idea, and representation, all properly involve the notion of consciousness, it being, in fact, contradictory to speak of a representation not really represented a perception not really perceived an actual idea of whose pres Unfortunate in the terms he employed to designate it. ence we are not aware. Fate of the doctrine in France and Britain. Condillac. - The close affinity of mental modifications with perceptions, ideas, representations, and the consequent commutation of these terms, have been undoubtedly the reasons why the Leibnitzian doctrine was not more generally adopted, and why, in France and in Britain, succeeding philosophers have almost admitted as a selfevident truth that there can be no modification of mind, devoid of consciousness. As to any refutation of the Leibnitzian doctrine, I know of none. Condillac is, indeed, the only psychologist who can be said to have formally proposed the question. He, like Mr. Stewart, attempts to explain why it can be supposed that the mind has modifications of which we are not conscious, by asserting that we are in truth conscious of the modification, but that it is immediately forgotten. In Germany, the doctrne of Leibnitz was almost universally adopted. I am not aware of a philosopher of the least note by whom it has been rejected. In France, it has, I see, lately been broached by M. de Cardaillac, as a theory of his own, and this, his The doctrine of Leibnitz adopted in Germany. 1 Descartes, Principia, pt. i. § 9. — Ed. 2 Nouveaux Essais, ii. 7. Monadologie, § 41. Principes de la Natur et de la Grace, § 4.- ED. 3 Origine des Connoissances Humaines, sect. ii. c. 1, § 4-13. - ED. 4 Etudes Elémentaires de Philosophie, t. ii. pp. 138, 139. De Cardaillac. originality, is marvellously admitted by authors like M. Damiron,1 whom we might reasonably expect to have been better informed. It is hardly worth adding that as the doctrine is not new, so nothing new has been contributed to its illustration. To British psychologists, the opinion would hardly seem to have been known. By none, certainly, is it seriously considered.2 Damiron. 2 Qualified exception; Kames's Essays on the principles of Morality and Natural Religion, (3d edit.), p. 289, to end, Ess. iv., on Matter and Spirit. [With Kames compare Carus, Psychologie, ii. p. 185, (edit. 1808). Tucker, Light of Nature, c. 10, § 4. Tralles, De Immortalitate Animæ, p. 39, et seq. On the general subject of acts of mind beyond the sphere of consciousness, compare Kant, Anthropologie, § 5. Reinhold, Theorie des Menschlichen Erk- LECTURE XIX. CONSCIOUSNESS, - GENERAL PHÆNOMENA.—DIFFICULTIES AND FACILITIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. In our last Lecture we were occupied with the last and principal part of the question, Are there mental agencies Recapitulation. beyond the sphere of Consciousness?-in other words, Are there modifications of mind unknown in themselves, but the existence of which we must admit, as the necessary causes of known effects? In dealing with this question, I showed, first of all, that there is indisputable evidence for the general fact, that even extensive systems of knowledge may, in our ordinary state, lie latent in the mind, beyond the sphere of consciousness and will; but which, in certain extraordinary states of organism, may again come forward into light, and even engross the mind to the exclusion of its everyday possessions. The establishment of the fact, that there are in the mind latent capacities, latent riches, which may occasionally exert a powerful and obtrusive agency, prepared us for the question, Are there, in ordinary, latent modifications of mind agencies unknown themselves as phanomena, but secretly concurring to the production of manifest effects? This problem, I endeavored to show you, must be answered in the affirmative. I took for the medium of proof various operations of mind, analyzed these, and found as a residuum a certain constituent beyond the sphere of consciousness, and the reality of which cannot be disallowed, as necessary for the realization of the allowed effect. My first examples were taken from the faculty of External Perception. I showed you, in relation to all the senses, that there is an ultimate perceptible minimum; that is, that there is no consciousness, no perception of the modification determined by its object in any sense, unless that object determines in the sense a certain Are there, in ordinary, latent modifications of mind, concurring to the production of manifest effects? Proof from the faculty of External Perception. |