ing, Reid has the merit of being, among modern philosophers, the first who trenched upon a recognition of this truth. Of Consciousness (to him a special faculty of self-consciousness), Sensation, Perception, and Memory, he once and again says, that judgment is involved in, or necessarily accompanies, their acts (Inq. 106 b, 107 a; I. P. 414 b; alibi); but this again be explicitly denies in regard to the operation of the faculty, which he variously denominates Conception, Imagination, and Simple Apprehension. (I. P. 223 a, 243 a, 375 a, 414 a b.) This limitation is incorrect; though it is easy to see how Reid, contemplating only a judgment affirmative of objective or real existence, was led to overlook the judgment affirmative of subjective or ideal existence in which all consciousness is realised. 10. The eighth condition of Consciousness is that whatever is thought is thought under the attribute of existence; existence being a notion a priori or native to the mind, and the primary act of consciousness an existential judgment. For if we are only conscious as we apprehend an object, and only apprehend it as we affirm it to exist, existence must be attributed to the object by the mind. But such could not be done unless this predicate were a notion which had a virtual pre-existence in the mind. For suppose it derived from, and not merely elicited on the occasion of, experience; suppose, in a word, with Locke, "that existence is an idea [not native but] suggested to the understanding by every object without, and every idea within;" in this case it must perforce be admitted that what suggests the notion of existence is itself an object of consciousness; for what we are not conscious of, that can suggest nothing. But where is the object of consciousness not already thought under the very attribute which this doctrine would maintain it originally to suggest? Till this question be answered-till the possibility of its being answered can be even conceived, we may safely reject the hypothesis that would contingently evolve the notion of existence out of an antecedent knowledge, instead of making the notion of existence the condition which all knowledge necessarily supposes. Ens, accordingly, has been viewed as the primum cognitum by a large proportion, if not the majority of philosophers, more or less prominently, on stronger or on weaker grounds; as by * Essay, B. ii. ch. 7. § 7. Aristotle, Alexander, Themistius, Simpli cius implicitly, and explicitly by Avi cenna, Averroes, Albertus Magnus, St Thomas with the whole Thomist school, and many other of the principal Schoolmen and Aristotelians. In more recent ages, without enumerating a long list of names, I may state in general that no philosopher has admitted the doctrine of cognitions a priori, who has been found to disallow the pre-eminent claims to this distinction which the notion of existence may prefer. Among contemporary metaphysicians, the Abbate Rosmini merita commemoration; who has, with great ingenuity and perseverance, endeavoured to develop this notion into a systematic, and in many respects, an original, philosophy of mind. This attempt would, I am confident, have been more successful, had it taken the following lower limitation of consciousness as its point of departure. 11. The ninth limitation of Consciousness is that while only realised in the recognition of existence, it is only realised in the recognition of the existent as conditioned; and even this requires a still further limitation, for we are conscious of the conditioned itself only as not unconditionally conditioned. Of the unconditioned, of the absolute or the infinite, we have no cognition, no conception,—in a word, no consciousness; and these, in themselves incognisable and inconceivable, we can talk about only as negations of what is positively cognisable and conceiv able-the conditioned in its various phases of the relative, the finite, &c. The development of this limitation would constitute a philosophy of the Conditioned in direct antithesis to the philosophy of the Absolute, maintained under diverse forme by many of the profoundest thinkers of the last half-century, among whom Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and my illustrious friend M. Cousin, are the most distinguished. This I may hereafter attempt; not cer tainly presuming to mete my own strength with that of such opponents, but confiding solely in the strength of the cause itself which I maintain. Of the nature of the present limitation, and of the polemical relations of a philosophy of the uncondi tioned, some indications may be found in an article by me, entitled, "The Philoso phy of the Absolute, &c.," in immediate reference to M. Cousin, in the Edinburgh Review, vol. L. p. 194 sq.;* to be found also in Crosse's "Selections," and in the "Fragmens Philosophiques, &c.," trans * Reprinted in Discussions, p. 1 sq.-ED. ON CONSCIOUSNESS. lated by M. Peisse, whose preface to the it is a particular case of the general law The principle, that we are conscious only Mind and matter exist for us But further;- stance. thinkable. more. Take now of the same object a quality A phænomenon is a or phænomenon. thinkable. But try to think this relative relative-ergo, a conditioned-ergo, a as absolutely relative, this conditioned as unconditionally conditioned, this phænoYou cannot; for either you do menon as a phænomenon and nothing not realise it in thought at all, or you suppose it to be the phænomenon of somebasis out of itself; you think it not as thing that does not appear; you give it a the absolutely, but as the relatively relative; not as the unconditionally, but as the conditionally conditioned; in other words, you conceive it as the Accident of stance of the Conditioned, and constitutes a Subject or Substance. This is an inThe law of the special case, the particular law, of Substance and Phænomenon. Cause and Effect is another subordinate application of the same general principle; but in connection with another limitation of Consciousness, which it is necessary [to state before proceeding.] * * [ 12. The tenth limitation of ConThis is the sciousness is that of Time.] necessary condition of every conscious act; thought is only realised to us as in succession, and succession is only conceived by us under the concept of Time. Existence, and existence in Time, is thus an elementary form of our intelligence. But we do not conceive existence in time absolutely or infinitely, we conceive it ence conditioned in Time expresses, at once only as conditioned in time; and Existand in relation, the three categories of thought, which afford us in combination The Author's MS. breaks off here. What on Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 399, and partly from his follows has been supplied, partly from his Lectures Discussions, p. 618.-ED. What does, admitted of the present; but it may probably be denied of the past and future. Yet if we make the experiment, we shall find the mental annihilation of an object equally impossible under time past, and present, and future. To obviate, however, misapprehension, a very simple observation may be proper. In saying that it is impossible to annihilate an object in thought, in other words, to conceive as non-existent, what had been conceived as existent,-it is of course not meant, that it is impossible to imagine the object wholly changed in form. We can represent to ourselves the elements of which it is composed, divided, dissipated, modified in any way; we can imagine anything of it, short of annihilation. But the complement, the quantum, of existence, thought as constituent of an object, the principle of Causality. Now the phænomenon of Causality * How easily the difficulty from the simultaneity of Cause and Effect, or rather from the identity of Causation and Effectuation, is solved on this theory, and on this theory alone, it would be out of bounds here to explain. I may notice, however, that the whole difficulty is developed by Aenesidemus, in Sextus Empiricus; and that those who have recognised it in modern times, seem to have been wholly unaware of the more ingenious speculation of the ancient sceptic. either as increased, without abstraction from other entities, or as diminished, without annexation to them. In short, we are unable to construe it in thought, that there can be an atom abso1 tely added to, or absolutely taken away from, existence in general. Let us make the experiment. Let us form to ourselves a concept-an image of the universe. Now, we are unable to think, that the quantity of existence, of which the universe is the conceived sum, can either be amplified or diminished. We are able to conceive, indeed, the creation of a world; this in fact as easily as the creation of an atom. But what is our thought of creation? It is not a thought of the mere springing of nothing into something. On the contrary, creation is conceived, and is by us conceivable, only as the evolution of existence from possibility into actuality, by the fiat of the Deity.* Let us place ourselves in imagination at its very crisis. Now, can we construe it to thought, that, the moment after the universe flashed into material reality, into manifested being, there was a larger complement of exist ence in the universe and its author together than, the moment before, there subsisted in the Deity alone? This we are unable to imagine. And what is true of our concept of creation, holds of our * The creation à Nihilo means only: that the universe, when created, was not merely put into form, an original chaos, or complement of brute matter, having preceded a plastic energy of intelligence; but, that the universe was called into actuality from potential existence by the Divine fiat. The Divine fiat, therefore, was the proximate cause of the creation; and the Deity containing the cause, contained, potentially, the effect. concept of annihilation. We can think no real annihilation,--no absolute sinking of something into nothing. But, as creation is cogitable by us, only as a putting forth of Divine power, so is annihilation by us only conceivable, as a withdrawal of that same power. All that is now actually existent in the universe, this we think and must think, as having, prior to creation, virtually existed in the creator; and in imagining the universe to be annihilated, we can only conceive this, as the retractation by the Deity of an overt energy into latent power.-In short, it is impossible for the human mind to think what it thinks existent, lapsing into absolute non-existence, either in time past or in time future. Our inability to think, what we have once conceived existent in Time, as in time becoming non-existent, corresponds with our inability to think, what we have conceived existent in Space, as in space becoming non-existent. We cannot realise it to thought, that a thing should be extruded, either from the one quantity or from the other. Hence, under extension, the law of Ultimate Incompressibility; under protension, the law of Cause and Effect. I have hitherto spoken only of one inconceivable pole of the conditioned, in its application to existence in time,- of the absolute extreme, as absolute commencement and absolute termination. The counter or infinite extreme, as infinite regress or non-commencement, and infinite progress or non-termination, is equally unthinkable. With this latter we have, however, at present nothing to do. Indeed, as not obtrusive, the Infinite figures far less in the theatre of mind, and exerts a far inferior influence in the modification of thought, than the Absolute. It is, in fact, both distant and delitescent; and in place of meeting us at every turn, it requires some exertion on our part to seek it out. It is the former and more obtrusive extreme,-it is the Absolute alone which constitutes and explains the mental manifestation of the causal judgment. An object is presented to our observation which has phænomenally begun to be. But we cannot construe it to thought, that the object, that is, this determinate complement of existence, had really no being at any past moment; because, in that case, once thinking it as existent, we should again think it as non-existent, which is for us impossible. What then can we-must we do? That the phænomenon presented to us, did, as a phanomenon, begin to be, this we know by experience; but that the elements, the constituents of its existence only began, when the phænomenon which they make up came into manifested being,-this we are wholly unable to think. In these circumstances how do we proceed? There is for us only one possible way. We are compelled to believe, that the object, (that is the certain quale and quantum of being, whose phænomenal rise into existence we have witnessed,) did really exist, prior to this rise, under other forms; (and by form, be it observed, I mean any mode of existence, conceivable by us or not.) But to say, that a thing previously existed under different forms, is only to say, in other words, that a thing had causes. (It would be here out of place, to refute the error of philosophers, in supposing that anything can have a single cause;-meaning always by a cause that without which the effect would not have been. I speak of course only of second causes, for of the Divine causation we can pretend to no conception.) I must, however, now cursorily observe, that nothing can be more erroneous in itself, or in its consequences more fertile in delusion, than the common doctrine, that the causal judgment is elicited, only when we apprehend objects in consecution, and uniform consecution. No doubt, the observation of such succession prompts and enables us to assign particular causes to particular effects. But this assignation ought to be carefully distinguished from the judgment of causality, absolutely. This consists, not in the empirical and contingent attribution of this phænomenon, as cause, to that phænomenon, as effect; but in the universal necessity of which we are conscious, to think causes for every event, whether that event stand isolated by itself, and be by us referable to no other, or whether it be one in a series of successive phænomena, which, as it were, spontaneously arrange themselves under the relation of effect and cause. Of no phænomenon, as observed, need we think the cause; but of every phænomenon must we think a cause. The former we may learn, through a process of induction and generalisation; the latter we must always and at once admit, constrained by the Condition of Relativity. On this, not sunken, rock, Dr Brown and others have been shipwrecked.* *The above extracts, being the exposition of the Author's theory of causation, have been supsent Note. For some further remarks in support plied as necessary to the completion of the preof the theory as compared with others, see Discussions, p. 622, and Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 409.-ED. [The following references from the Author's Common-Place Book relate to the second portion of the present Note.ED.] differt, nulla est apud deos cognitio, nulla perceptio.'] Burthogge, Essay upon Reason and the Nature of Spirits (London, 1694), pp. 4, 5: ['Consciousness seems to me to arise, I. On the conditions of Consciousness. ordinarily, from the distinction and difPlotinus (Enn. vi. L. vii. c. 39) states ference that is in Conceptions; for, should admirably the conditions of knowledge, any person have his eye perpetually tied which he makes five in number: 1°, to one object, without ever closing of, or Change; 2°, Diversity; 3°, [Compari- turning it to another, he would no more son; 4°, Relation; 5°, Multiplicity.] be sensible that he saw that object, or [The passage is as follows: Aid kal know any more what it was to see, than ὀρθῶς ἑτερότητα λαμβάνει, ὅπου νοῦς καὶ if he had been blind from his birth. For οὐσία. Δεῖ γὰρ τὸν νοῦν ἀεὶ ἑτερότητα | since consciousness of seeing is nothing καὶ ταὐτότητα λαμβάνειν, εἴπερ νοήσει but a perceiving by the eye, that one is ἑαυτόν τε γὰρ οὐ διακρινεῖ ἀπὸ τοῦ νοητοῦ, affected, or otherwise affected than he τῇ πρὸς αὐτὸ ἑτέρου σχέσει, τά τε πάντα was, with the appearance of Light or οὐ θεωρήσει, μηδεμιᾶς ἑτερότητος γενομένης, Colour; if a person had never seen but εἰς τὸ πάντα εἶναι· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἂν οὐδὲ δύο. one thing, and never but seen it, he could Ἔπειτα εἰ νοήσει οὐ δήπου ἑαυτὸν μόνον have no perceivance (that) he is so affect νοήσει, εἴπερ ὅλως νοήσει· διὰ τὶ γὰρ οὐχ ed, that is, he could not be sensible or ἅπαντα; ἢ ἀδυνατήσει; ὅλως δὲ οὐχ ἁπλοῦς conscious (that) he did see. . .. I conγίνεται νοῶν ἑαυτὸν, ἀλλὰ δεῖ τὴν νόησιν τὴν clude, that as difference of conception περὶ αὐτοῦ ἑτέρου εἶναι, εἴ τι ὅλως δύναται arises from different affections of the νοεῖν αὐτὸ· ἐλέγομεν δὲ, ὅτι οὐ νόησις τοῦτο, faculties by objects, so Consciousness, or εἰ δὴ ἄλλον αὑτὸν ἐθέλοι ἰδεῖν·† νοήσας δὲ Sense of Conception, arises from the dif αὐτὸς, πολὺς γίνεται, νοητὸς, νοῶν, κινού- ference of Conceptions, &c.] μενος, καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα προσήκει νῷ. Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις κἀκεῖνο ὁρᾷν προσήκει, ὅπερ είρηται ἤδη ἐν ἄλλοις, ὡς ἑκάστη νόησις, εἴπερ νόησις ἔσται, ποικίλον τι δεῖ εἶναι· τὸ δὲ ἁπλοῦν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ πᾶν οἷον κίνημα, εἰ τοιοὗτον εἴη οἷον ἐπαφὴ, οὐδὲν νοερὸν ἔχει. Τί οὖν; οὔτε τὰ ἄλλα οὔτε αὑτὸν εἰδήσει, ἀλλὰ σεμνὸν ἑστήξεται; τὰ μὲν οὖν ἄλλα ὕστερα αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἦν πρὸ αὐτῶν ὅ ἦν, κ. τ. λ.] So Jordanus Brunus (De Imaginum Signorum et Idearum Compositione, Dedicatio, p. iv.): Intelligere nostrum (id est, operationes nostri intellectus) aut est phantasia, aut non sine phantasia. Rursum, non intelligimus nisi phantasmata speculemur. Hoc est quod non in simplicitate quadam, statu, et unitate, sed in compositione, collatione, terminorum pluralitate, mediante discursu atque reflexione, comprehendimus.' Cicero, De Natura Deorum, L. i. c. 29: ['Si una omnium (sc. Deorum) facies est, florere in cœlo Academiam necesse est. Si enim nihil inter deum et deum See also, to the same effect, Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lect. xi. p 66 (ed. 1830). II. On acts of mind beyond the sphere of Consciousness.* Are there acts of mind beyond the sphere of consciousness ? Affirmative: Leibnitz, Nouv. Ess., Avantpropos, p. 8-9, and L. ii. cc. 1, 2, p. 69. 72 (ed. Raspe); Monad. §§ 14, 20-23; Princ. de la Nature et de la Grace, § 4; alibi ;-Bilfinger, De Harmonia Præsta bilita, Sect. vi. § 68, pp. 182, 183 (3d edition); - Canz, Philosophia Wolfiana, Psych. L. i. § 36 (ed. 1737); Med. Phil. § 830 (Tubingae, 1750);-Feuerlin, Phil. Saetze von klaren und dunkeln Begriffen, B. ii. Th. i. pp. 39, 69 sq.;-Kames, Essays, &c., P. ii. Ess. iv., On Matter and Spirit, p. 289 to end (3d edition);-Schaubert, Diss. de Idearum in Anima Conservatione (Altorfii Noricorum, 1744), omnino;-Platner, Phil. Aph., i. p. 70;— Tetens, Phil. Versuche, i. p. 265, quodammodo;-Beausobre, Ueber die Natur und ueber die Nothwendigkeit dunkler Ideen (in Hissmann's 'Magazin fuer die Philo * See above, pp. 932, 933. This question has been partly discussed in the Author's Lectures on Metaphysics, Lectt. xviii. xix. It is probable that he contemplated a fuller treatment in the present work, for which the following references would have served as materials. -ED. |