It may be observed that, without apprehension of the objects concerning which we judge, there can be no judgment; as little can there be reasoning without both apprehension and judgment: these three operations, therefore, are not independent of each other. The second includes the first, and the third includes both the first and second; but the first may be exercised without either of the other two. It is on that account called simple apprehension; that is, apprehension unaccompanied with any judgment about the object apprehended. This simple apprehension of an object is, in common language, called having a notion, or having a conception of the object, and by late authors is called having an idea of it. In speaking, it is expressed by a word, or by a part of a proposition, without that composition and structure which makes a complete sentence; as a man, a man of fortune: Such words, taken by themselves, signify simple apprehentions. They neither affirm nor [69] deny; they imply no judgment or opinion of the thing signified by them; and, therefore, cannot be said to be either true or false. The second operation in this division is judyment; in which, say the philosophers, there must be two objects of thought compared, and some agreement or disagree ment, or, in general, some relation discerned between them; in consequence of which, there is an opinion or belief of that relation which we discern. This operation is expressed in speech by a proposition, in which some relation between the things compared is affirmed or denied: as when we say, All men are fallible. Truth and falsehood are qualities which belong to judgment only; or to propositions by which judgment is expressed. Every judgment, every opinion, and every proposition, is either true or false. But words which neither affirm nor deny anything, can have neither of those qualities; and the same may be said of simple apprehensions, which are signified by such words. The third operation is reasoning; in which, from two or more judgments, we draw a conclusion. This division of our intellectual powers corresponds perfectly with the account commonly given by philosophers, of the successive steps by which the mind proceeds in the acquisition of its knowledge; which are these three: First, By the senses, or by other means, it is furnished with various simple apprehensions, notions, or ideas. These are the materials which nature gives it to work upon; and from the simple ideas it is furnished with by nature, it forms various others more complex. Secondly, By comparing its ideas, and by perceiving their agreements and disagreements, it forms its judgments. And, Lastly, From two or more judgments, it deduces conclusions of reasoning. Now, if all our knowledge is got by a procedure of this kind, [70] certainly the threefold division of the powers of understanding, into simple apprehension, judgment, and reasoning, is the most natural and the most proper that can be devised. This theory and that division are so closely connected that it is difficult to judge which of them has given rise to the other; and they must stand or fall together. But, if all our knowledge is not got by a process of this kind-if there are other avenues of knowledge besides the comparing our ideas, and perceiving their agreements and disagreements-it is probable that there may be operations of the understanding which cannot be properly reduced under any of the three that have been explained. Let us consider some of the most familiar operations of our minds, and see to which of the three they belong. I begin with consciousness. I know that I think, and this of all knowledge is the most certain. Is that operation of my mind which gives me this certain knowledge, to be called simple apprehension? No, surely. Simple apprehension neither affirms nor denies. It will not be said that it is by reasoning that I know that I think. It remains, therefore, that it must be by judgment-that is, according to the account given of judgment, by comparing two ideas, and perceiving the agreement between them. But what are the ideas compared? They must be the idea of myself, and the idea of thought, for they are the terms of the proposition I think. According to this account, then, first, I have the idea of myself and the idea of thought; then, by comparing these two ideas, I perceive that I think. Let any man who is capable of reflection judge for himself, whether it is by an operation of this kind that he comes to be convinced that he thinks? To me it appears evident, that the conviction I have that I think, is not got in this way; and, therefore, I conclude, either that consciousness is not judgment, or that judgment is not rightly defined to be the perception of some agreement or disagreement between two ideas. The perception of an object by my senses is another operation of [71] the understanding. 1 would know whether it be simple apprehension, or judgment, or reasoning. It is not simple apprehension, because I am persuaded of the existence of the object as much as I could be by demonstration. It is not judgment, if by judgment be meant the comparing ideas, and perceiving their agreements or disagreements. It is not reasoning, because those who cannot reason can perceive. I find the same difficulty in classing memory under any of the operations mentioned. There is not a more fruitful source of error in this branch of philosophy, than divisions of things which are taken to be "complete when they are not really so. To make a perfect division of any class of things, a man ought to have the whole under his view at once. But the greatest capacity very often is not sufficient for this. Something is left out which did not come under the philosopher's view when he made his division: and to suit this to the division, it must be made what nature never made it. This has been so common a fault of philosophers, that one who would avoid error ought to be suspicious of divisions, though long received, and of great authority, especially when they are grounded on a theory that may be called in question. In a subject imperfectly known, we ought not to pretend to perfect divisions, but to leave room for such additions or alterations as a more perfect view of the subject may afterwards suggest. I shall not, therefore, attempt a complete enumeration of the powers of the human understanding. I shall only mention those which I propose to explain; and they are the following : 1st, The powers we have by means of our external senses. 2dly, Memory. 3dly, Conception. 4thly, The powers of resolving and analysing complex objects, and compounding those that are more simple. 5thly, Judging. 6thly, Reasoning. 7thly, Taste. 8thly, Moral Perception; and, last of all, Consciousness.+ [72] CHAPTER VIII. OF SOCIAL OPERATIONS OF MIND. THERE is another division of the powers of the mind, which, though it has been, ought not to be overlooked by writers on this subject, because it has a real foundation in nature. Some operations of our minds, from their very nature, are social, others are solitary. Moral Perception is treated under the Active Powers, in Essay V.-H. ↑ Consciousness obtains only an incidental consideration, under Judgment, in the Fifth Chapter of the Sixth Essay.-H. By the first, I understand such operations as necessarily suppose an intercourse with some other intelligent being. A man may understand and will; he may apprehend, and judge, and reason, though he should know of no intelligent being in the universe besides himself. But, when he asks information, or receives it; when he bears testimony, or receives the testimony of another; when he asks a favour, or accepts one; when he gives a command to his servant, or receives one from a superior; when he plights his faith in a promise or contract-these are acts of social intercourse between intelligent beings, and can have no place in solitude. They suppose understanding and will; but they suppose something more, which is neither understanding nor will; that is, society with other intelligent beings. They may be called intellec tual, because they can only be in intellectual beings; but they are neither simple apprehension, nor judgment, nor reasoning, nor are they any combination of these operations. To ask a question, is as simple an operation as to judge or to reason; yet it is neither judgment nor reasoning, nor simple apprehension, nor is it any composition of these. Testimony is neither simple apprehension, nor judgment, nor reasoning. The same may be said of a promise, or of a contract. These acts of mind are perfectly understood by every man of common understanding; but, when philosophers attempt to bring them within the pale of their divisions, by analysing them, they find inex plicable mysteries, [73] and even contradictions, in them. One may see an instance of this, of many that might be mentioned, in Mr Hume's "Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals," § 3, part 2, note, near the end. The attempts of philosophers to reduce the social operations under the common philosophical divisions, resemble very much the attempts of some philosophers to reduce all our social affections to certain modifications of self-love. The Author of our being intended us to be social beings, and has, for that end, given us social intellectual powers, as well as social affections. Both are original parts of our constitution, and the exertions of both no less natural than the exertions of those powers that are solitary and selfish. Our social intellectual operations, as well as our social affections, appear very early in life, before we are capable of reasoning; yet both suppose a conviction of the exist ence of other intelligent beings. When a child asks a question of his nurse, this act "Man,' says Aristotle," is, by nature, mere political than any bee or ant." And, in another work, "Man is the sweetest thing to man"που ἥδιστον άνθρωπος - Η. of his mind supposes not only a desire to know what he asks; it supposes, likewise, a conviction that the nurse is an intelligent being, to whom he can communicate his thoughts, and who can communicate her thoughts to him. How he came by this conviction so early, is a question of some importance in the knowledge of the human mind, and, therefore, worthy of the consideration of philosophers. But they seem to have given no attention, either to this early conviction, or to those operations of mind which suppose it. Of this we shall have occasion to treat afterwards. All languages are fitted to express the social as well as the solitary operations of the mind. It may indeed be affirmed, that, to express the former, is the primary and direct intention of language. A man who had no intercourse with any other intelligent being, would never think of language. He would be as mute as the beasts of the field; even more so, because they have some degree of social intercourse with one another, and some of them [74] with man. When language is once learned, it may be useful even in our solitary meditations; and by clothing our thoughts with words, we may have a firmer hold of them. But this was not its first intention; and the structure of every language shews that it is not intended solely for this purpose. In every language, a question, a command, a promise, which are social acts, can be expressed as easily and as properly as judgment, which is a solitary act. The expression of the last has been honoured with a particular name; it is called a proposition; it has been an object of great attention to philosophers; it has been analysed into its very elements of subject predicate, and copula. All the various modifications of these, and of propositions which are compounded of them, have been anxiously examined in many voluminous tracts. The expression of a question, of a command, or of a promise, is as capable of being analysed as a proposition is; but we do not find that this has been attempted; we have not so much as given them a name different from the operations which they express. Why have speculative men laboured so anxiously to analyse our solitary operations, and given so little attention to the social ? I know no other reason but this, that, in the divisions that have been made of the mind's operations, the social have been omitted, and thereby thrown behind the curtain. In all languages, the second person of verbs, the pronoun of the second person, and the vocative case in nouns, are appropriated to the expression of social operations of mind, and could never have had place in language but for this purpose: nor is it a good argument against this observation, that, by a rhetorical figure, we sometimes address persons that are absent, or even inanimated beings, in the second person. For it ought to be remembered, that all figurative ways of using words or phrases suppose a natural and literal meaning of them. [75] What, throughout this chapter, is implied, ought to have been explicitly stated-that language is natu ral to man; and consequently the faculty of speech ought to have been enumerated among the mental powers.-H. ESSAY II. OF THE POWERS WE HAVE BY MEANS OF OUR EXTERNAL SENSES. CHAPTER I. OF THE ORGANS OF SENSE. Or all the operations of our minds, the perception of external objects is the most familiar. The senses come to maturity even in infancy, when other powers have not yet sprung up. They are common to us with brute animals, and furnish us with the objects about which our other powers are the most frequently employed. We find it easy to attend to their operations; and, because they are familiar, the names which properly belong to them are applied to other powers which are thought to resemble them. For these reasons, they claim to be first considered. The perception of external objects is one main link of that mysterious chain which connects the material world with the intellectual. We shall find many things in this operation unaccountable; sufficient to convince us that we know but little of our own frame; and that a perfect comprehension of our mental powers, and of the manner of their operation, is beyond the reach of our understanding. In perception, there are impressions upon the organs of sense, the nerves, and brain, which, by the laws of our nature, are followed by certain operations of mind. These two things are apt to be confounded; but ought most carefully to be distinguished. Some philosophers, without good reason, have concluded, that the [76] impressions made on the body are the proper efficient cause of perception. Others, with as little reason, have concluded that impressions are made on the mind similar to those made on the body. From these mistakes many others have arisen. The wrong notions men have rashly taken up with regard to the senses, have led to wrong notions with regard to other powers which are conceived to resemble them. Many important powers of mind have, especially of late, been called internal senses, from a supposed resemblance to the external-such as, the sense of beauty, the sense of harmony, the moral sense. And it is to be apprehended that errors, with regard to the external, have, from analogy, led to similar errors with regard to the internal; it is, therefore, of some consequence, even with regard to other branches of our subject, to have just notions concerning the external senses. In order to this, we shall begin with some observations on the organs of sense, and on the impressions which in perception are made upon them, and upon the nerves and brain. perceiving external objects without suchorgans.* We have reason to believe that, when we put off these bodies and all the organs belonging to them, our perceptive powers shall rather be improved than destroyed or impaired. We have reason to believe that the Supreme Being perceives everything in a much more perfect manner than we do, without bodily organs. We have reason to believe that there are other created beings endowed with powers of perception more perfect and more extensive than ours, without any such organs as we find necessary. We ought not, therefore, to conclude, that such bodily organs are, in their own nature, necessary to perception; but rather that, by the will of God, our power of perceiving external objects is limited and circumscribed by our organs of sense; so that we perceive objects in a certain manner, and in certain circumstances, and in no other.+ If a man was shut up in a dark room, so that he could see nothing but through one small hole in the shutter of a window, would he conclude that the hole was the cause of his seeing, and that it is impossible to see any other way? Perhaps, if he had never in his life seen but in this way, he might be apt to think so; but the conclusion is rash and groundless. He sees, because God has given him the power of seeing; and he sees only through this small hole, because his power of seeing is circumscribed by impediments on all other hands. Another necessary caution in this matter is, that we ought not to confound the organs of perception with the being that perceives. Perception must be the act of some being that perceives. The eye [78] is not that which sees; it is only the organ by which we see. The ear is not that which hears, but the organ by which we hear; and so of the rest. § We perceive no external object but by means of certain bodily organs which God has given us for that purpose. The Supreme Being who made us, and placed us in this world, hath given us such powers of mind as he saw to be suited to our state and rank in his creation. He has given us the power of perceiving many objects around us-the sun, moon, and stars, the earth and sea, and a variety of animals, vegetables, and inanimate bodies. But our power of perceiving these objects is limited in various ways, and particularly in this-that, without the organs of the several senses, we perceive no external object. We cannot see without eyes, nor hear without ears; it is not only necessary that we should have these organs, but that they should be in a However astonishing, it is now proved beyond sound and natural state. There are many all rational doubt, that, in certain abnormal states disorders of the eye that cause total blind- of the nervous organism, perceptions are possible, ness; others that impair the powers of vi-through other than the ordinary channels of the sion, without destroying it altogether: and The doctrine of Plato and of many other phi. Reid ought, however, to have said, the same may be said of the organs of all losophers. limited to, instead of" by our organs of sense:" for, the other senses. [77] if the body be viewed as the prison of the soul, the senses must be viewed at least as partial outlets.H. All this is so well known from experience, that it needs no proof; but it ought to be observed, that we know it from experience only. We can give no reason for it, but that such is the will of our Maker. No man can shew it to be impossible to the Supreme Being to have given us the power of He refers to Hutcheson.-H. A man cannot see the satellites of Jupiter but by a telescope. Does he conclude from this, that it is the telescope that sees those stars? By no means-such a conclusion would be absurd. It is no less absurd to senses.--H † Δ ̓ ὀφθαλμῶν, οὐκ ὀφθαλμοῖς, says Plato, followed by a host of philosophers, comparing the senses to windows of the mind.-H. "The mind fees," says Epicharmus-" the mind hears, all else is deaf and blind"-a saying alluded to as proverbial by Aristotle, in a passage to the same effect, which cannot adequately be translated:Χωρισθεῖσα αἴσθησις διανοίας, καθάπερ ἀναίσθητον πόνον ἔχει, ὥστες εἴρηται τὸν Νᾶς ὁρᾷ, καὶ τῆς xou. This has escaped the commentators.-H. conclude that it is the eye that sees, or the ear that hears. The telescope is an artificial organ of sight, but it sees not. The eye is a natural organ of sight, by which we see; but the natural organ sees as little as the artificial. The eye is a machine most admirably contrived for refracting the rays of light, and forming a distinct picture of objects upon the retina; but it sees neither the object nor the picture. It can form the picture after it is taken out of the head; but no vision ensues. Even when it is in its proper place, and perfectly sound, it is well known that an obstruction in the optic nerve takes away vision, though the eye has performed all that belongs to it. which some impression is made upon the organ. The effluvia of bodies drawn into the nostrils with the breath, are the medium of smell; the undulations of the air are the medium of hearing; and the rays of light passing from visible objects to the eye, are the medium of sight. We see no object, unless rays of light come from it to the eye. We hear not the sound of any body, unless the vibrations of some elastic medium, occasioned by the tremulous motion of the sounding body, reach our ear. We perceive no smell, unless the effluvia of the smelling body enter into the nostrils. We perceive no taste, unless the sapid body be applied to the tongue, or some part of the organ of taste. Nor do we perceive any tangible quality of a body, unless it touch the hands, or some part of our bodies. These are facts known from experience to hold universally and invariably, both in men and brutes. By this law of our nature, our powers of perceiving external ob If anything more were necessary to be said on a point so evidert, we might observe that, if the faculty of seeing were in the eye, that of hearing in the ear, and so of the other senses, the necessary consequence of this would be, that the thinking principle, which I call myself, is not one, but many. But this is contrary to the ir-jects, are farther limited and circumscribed. resistible conviction of every man. When I say I see, I hear, I feel, I remember, this implies that it is one and the same self that performs all these operations; and, as it would be absurd to say that my memory, another man's imagination, and a third man's reason, may make one individual intelligent being, it would be equally absurd to say that one piece of matter seeing, another hearing, and a third feeling, may make one and the same percipient being. These sentiments are not new; they have occurred to thinking men from early ages. Cicero, in his "Tusculan Questions," Book I., chap. 20, has expressed them very distinetly. Those who choose may consult the passage. [79] CHAPTER II. Nor can we give any other reason for this, than [80] that it is the will of our Maker, who knows best what powers, and what degrees of them, are suited to our state. We were once in a state, I mean in the womb, wherein our powers of perception were more limited than in the present, and, in a future state, they may be more enlarged. It is likewise a law of our nature, that, in order to our perceiving objects, the impressions made upon the organs of sense must be communicated to the nerves, and by them to the brain. This is perfectly known to those who know anything of anatomy. The nerves are fine cords, which pass from the brain, or from the spinal marrow, which is a production of the brain, to all parts of the body, dividing into smaller branches as they proceed, until at last they escape our eyesight and it is found by experience, that all the voluntary and in OF THE IMPRESSIONS ON THE ORGANS, NERVES, Voluntary motions of the body are performed AND BRAINS. A SECOND law of our nature regarding perception is, that we perceive no object, unless some impression is made upon the organ of sense, either by the immediate application of the object, or by some medium which passes between the object and the organ. In two of our senses-to wit, touch and taste there must be an immediate application of the object to the organ. In the other three, the object is perceived at a distance, but still by means of a medium, by Cicero says nothing on this head that had not been said before him by the Greek philosophers.-H. by their means. When the nerves that serve any limb, are cut, or tied hard, we have then no more power to move that limb than if it was no part of the body. As there are nerves that serve the muscular motions, so there are others that serve the several senses; and as without the former we cannot move a limb, so without the latter we can have no perception. This distinction of a mediate and immediate ob Ject, or of an object and a medium, in perception, is inaccurate, and a source of sad confusion. We per. ceive, and can perceive, nothing but what is in relation to the organ, and nothing is in relation to the organ that is not present to it. All the senses are, in fact, modifications of touch, as Democritus of old taught. We reach the distant reality, not by sense, not by perception, but by inference. Reid, how. ever, in this only follows his predecessors.-H. |