Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will - Joseph Haven

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they become so only when attended with some exercise of judgment or of belief. We conceive of a mountain of gold or of glass, and this simple conception has nothing to do with truth or error. When we conceive of it, however, as actually existing, and in this or that place, or when we simply judge that such a mountain is somewhere to be found, then such judgment or belief is either true or false; but it is no longer simple conception.

      Not always Possibilities; nor possible Things always conceivable.—Our conceptions are not always possibilities. We can conceive of some things not within the limits of possibility. On the other hand, not every thing possible even is conceivable. Existence without beginning or end is possible, but it is not in the power of the human mind, strictly speaking, to conceive of such a thing. I know that Deity thus exists. I understand what is meant by such a proposition, and I believe it. But I cannot construe it to myself as a definite intellection, an apprehension, as I can conceive of the existence of a city or a continent, or of the truth of a mathematical proposition.

      The same may be said of the ideas of the infinite and the absolute. They are not properly within the limits of thought, of apprehension, to the human mind. Thought in its very nature imposes a limitation on the object which is thought of—fathoms it—passes around it with its measuring line—apprehends it: only so far as this is done is the thing actually thought; only so far as it can be done is the thing really thinkable. But the infinite, the unconditioned, the absolute, in their very nature unlimited, cannot be shut up thus within the narrow lines of human thought. They are inconceivable. They are not, however, contradictory to thought. They may be true; they are true and real, though we cannot properly conceive them.

      The Inconceivable becomes Impossible, when.—Not every thing then which is inconceivable is impossible, nor, on the other hand, is every thing which is impossible inconceivable. The inconceivable is impossible, at least it can be known to be so, only when it is either self-contradictory—as that a thing should be and not be at the same time—that a part is equal to the whole, etc.; or when it is contradictory of the laws of thought, as that two straight lines should enclose a space—that an event may occur without a cause—that space is not necessary to the existence of matter, or time to the succession of events. These things are unthinkable but they are more than that, contradictory of the established laws of thought; and they are impossible, because thus contradictory, and not merely because inconceivable. It is hardly true, as is sometimes affirmed, and as Dr. Wayland has stated, that our conceptions are the limits of possibility.

      Mr. Stewart's use of the term Conception.—Mr. Stewart has employed the term Conception in a somewhat peculiar manner, and has assigned it a definite place among the faculties of the mind. He uses it to denote "that power of the mind which enables it to form a notion of an absent object of perception, or of a sensation which we have formerly felt." It is the office of this faculty "to present us with an exact transcript of what we have felt or perceived." In this respect it differs from imagination, which gives not an exact transcript, but one more or less altered or modified, combining our conceptions so as to form new results. It differs from memory in that it involves no idea of time, no recognition of the thing conceived, as a thing formerly perceived.

      Objection to this use.—This use of the term is, on some accounts, objectionable. It is certainly not the ordinary sense of the word, but a departure from established usage. It is an arbitrary limitation of a word to denote a part only instead of the whole of that which it properly signifies There is no reason, in the nature of the case, why the notion we form of an absent object of perception, or of a sensation, should be called a conception, rather than our notion of an abstract truth, a proposition in morals, or a mathematical problem. I am not aware that any special importance attaches to the former more than to the latter class of conceptions. Indeed, Sir W. Hamilton limits the term to the latter. But this again is not in accordance with established usage.

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      THE

       PRESENTATIVE POWER

      SENSE OR PERCEPTION BY THE SENSES.

      § I.—General Observations.

      This Faculty the Foundation of our Knowledge.—Of the cognitive powers of the mind, the first to be noticed, according to the analysis and distribution already given, is the Presentative Power—the power of cognizing external objects through the senses. This claims our first attention, inasmuch as it lies, chronologically at least, at the foundation of all our cognitive powers, and in truth, of our entire mental activity. We can, perhaps, conceive of a being so constituted as to be independent of sense, and yet possess mental activity; and we can even conceive such a mind as taking cognizance, in some mysterious way, of objects external to itself. But not such a being is man—not such the nature of the human mind. Its activity is first awakened through sense; from sense it derives its knowledge of the external world, of whatever lies without and beyond the charmed circle of self; and whether all our knowledge is, strictly speaking, derived from sense, or not—a question so much disputed, and which we will not here stay to discuss—there can be no doubt that the activity of sense, and the knowledge thus acquired, is at least the beginning and foundation of all our mental acquisitions. We are constantly receiving impressions from without through the senses. In this way the mind is first awakened to activity, and from this source we derive our knowledge of the external world.

      General Character of this Faculty.—In its general character the faculty now under consideration, as the name indicates, is presentative and intuitive. It presents rather than represents objects, and what the mind thus perceives it perceives intuitively, rather than as the result of reflection. The knowledge which it gives is immediate knowledge, the knowledge of that which is now and here present, in time and space.

      Involves a twofold Element.—Looking more closely at the character of this faculty, we find it to involve a twofold element, which we cannot better indicate than by the terms subjective and objective. There is, in the first place, the knowledge or consciousness of our own sentient organism as affected, and there is also the knowledge of something external to, and independent of the mind itself, or the me, as the producing cause of this affection of the organism. We know, by one and the same act, ourselves as affected, and the existence and presence of an external something affecting us. This presupposes, of course, the distinct independent existence of the me and the not-me—of ourselves as thinking and sentient beings, and of objects external to ourselves, and material,—a distinction which lies at the foundation of all sense-perception. All perception by the senses involves, and presupposes, the existence of a sentient being capable of perceiving, and of an object capable of being perceived. It supposes, also, such a relation between the two, that the former is affected by the presence of the latter. From this results perception in its twofold aspect, or the knowledge, on the part of the sentient mind, at once of itself as affected, and of the object as affecting it. According as one or the other of these elements is more directly the object of attention, so the subjective and the objective character predominate in the act of perception. If the former, then we think chiefly of the me as affected, and are scarcely conscious of the external object as the source or the producing cause; if the latter, the reverse is true.

      § II—Analysis of the Perceptive Process.

      Simple Sensation.—The nature of the presentative power may be better understood by observing closely the different steps of the process. As we come into contact with the external world, the first thing of which we are conscious, the first step in the process of cognition, is doubtless simple sensation. Something touches me, my bodily organism is thereby affected, and I am conscious, at once, of a certain feeling or sensation. I do not know as yet what has produced the sensation, or whether any thing produced it. I do not as

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