distinctions mentioned which is directly and at first applicable; the distinction of form and matter applies to every state of consciousness alike, and consequently it could only be the greater or less degree of either of these elements in any given case which could cause it to be classed under one or the other category; but such a greater or less degree, or predominance, of either element can only be judged of when the states themselves have been already ranged in some classification, and distinguished although roughly from each other. Again, the distinction between reflective and direct modes of consciousness is in itself subordinate to the distinction between presentation and representation, since reflection is one mode of the latter; this distinction, then, will be found to be the basis of a classification of the feelings falling under representation, that is, of the emotions, but not of the feelings as a whole. If however we turn to the other class of distinctions, distinctions in the matter of feeling itself, it will be seen that the differences between special feelings are indeed immediately discernible, but, from their being the last specialities, rà xao' inaora, of experience, are rather the matter to be classed than the ground of classification; since it is the very difficulty of distinguishing these specialities of feeling which causes us to undertake the task of analysis and classification. As to the remaining distinction, between general or pervading feelings, pleasure, pain, and effort, and special feelings pervaded by them, it is true that this distinction is broad and sound and obvious; but it neither leads us to anything further than itself, nor becomes the ground of further distinctions to be developed out of it. As the distinction between form BOOK I. § 8. General distinctions and method. BOOK I. $8. General distinctions and method. $9. The systemic sensations. and matter could make no beginning of a classification, so this can make no progress towards one, but remains in itself as an observed general fact. See on pleasure and pain in this respect Prof. Bain, The Emotions and the Will, Chap. ii. 2d ed. The distinction of presentation and representation on the other hand produces out of itself the further distinction of direct and reflective representation, which exhausts the whole field of consciousness. § 9. 1. We obtain thus for our first step towards analysis and classification of feelings the following scheme: Presentations or Sensations. (Direct. Representations or Emotions Reflective. The first thing then to be done is to examine and arrange the sensations, or feelings which consist of presentative perceptions only, at the same time showing, by the application of the distinction between general or pervading and special or pervaded feelings, how they are connected with and pass over into representations and emotions. In presentative perception there are always the two elements of form and matter; and this distinction will now serve us to carry on the analysis, if we attend to the modes of combination of the two kinds of form, time and space, with matter, and to the preponderance of one or of the other element. The lowest, as they are called, and simplest states of consciousness are those in which time alone and not space is found, and in which also there is no other distinction between the portions of time but simple duration. What states are those in which these conditions are alone observable? They are those feelings which are called organic, or systemic to adopt Mr. Lewes' term; and which are metaphysically distinguished only by a special difference in their matter, or in kind, and physiologically by the different organs or parts of the body or nervous system to which they belong. Accordingly, this first great group of systemic sensations may be distinguished into the following subgroups; see Prof. Bain's classification in The Senses and the Intellect, Book i. Chap. ii., to which I am much indebted: 1. Sensations of the digestive organs; among 2. Sensations of the nutritive and circulatory 3. Sensations of the respiratory organs; among 4. Sensations of the reproductive organs. 6. Sensations of the nerves themselves; among 7. Sensus communis; among others, feeling BOOK I. $9. The systemic sensations. Воок І. § 9. The systemic Two sensations here enumerated under sensus communis, namely, pressure and temperature, or heat and cold, are sometimes counted as belonging to the sensations. special sense of touch, on the ground that they have the same organ, nerves with their peripheral ends distributed to the surface of the external skin, and that accordingly superficial extension in space is always involved in the sensation. Heat and cold, it is said, are not felt as such, but only as pain, when applied to the course of a nerve; only when applied to its extremity are they felt as heat and cold, and then they contain also some perception of superficial extension. The same is said of those low degrees of pressure which do not call forth muscular exertion. (Prof. Funke's Lehrbuch der Physiologie, § 180. 4th ed.) And both of them combine immediately, like other sensations of touch, with a Vorstellung, or perception of an external object, or, as I should say, with the perception of a "remote" object. There are however distinct sensations when pressure, heat, or cold, are felt internally, and these distinct sensations will perhaps be best classed under sensus communis. Touch is involved when they are applied to the nerve extremities, and, in the case of pressure, muscular sensation seems also inseparable. All we can do here is to distinguish inseparable elements in a complex sensation. But heat and cold, when applied to the nerve extremities, are so different in quality or kind of sensation from the other sensations of touch, that we must at any rate assign them a separate and intermediate place between that and the sensus communis. They are of the same sensational or material character as sensations of ache or lesion, cutting or pricking, but at the same time have super ficial extension in them, owing to their application at the extremities of the nerve in skin surface. Sensus communis, then, I conceive as a group of distinct sensations which have no peculiar group of nerves appropriated to them. The sensations are distinct, but not their organs. 2. These seven groups, or eight if we treat heat and cold apart, may be also distinguished among themselves by reference to their continuance or intermittence. The second, third, and sixth group are continuous; there is always, except in sleep, some state of feeling present to us, belonging to each of these groups, though it may be a very dim feeling. The other groups are intermittent; it is only when the organs are in certain states that the sensations belonging to these groups arise. The seventh group is potentially continuous, that is, we may have the feelings belonging to it at any moment, if the appropriate stimulus should occur, while the general and distributed character of the organ, being spread over the whole body, prevents any one stimulus from being specially appropriated to produce the feelings. This distinction is not unimportant, since it is the intermittent and special character of the first and fourth groups which, together with the pleasurable character of some of their sensations, enables them to become the foundation of what are afterwards called appetites. 3. But in all these sensations alike there is pleasure and pain, a pleasure and a pain which take their colour from the sensations in which they arise. There may be also in all of them the sense of effort, which arises not indeed at all times but only when there is a certain degree of pleasure or of pain. Whenever Воок І. § 9. The systemic sensations. |