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

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The properties and relations of things, rather than things themselves, are the objects of our thoughts. Still they are the properties and relations primarily of sensible objects, and of these objects as conceived, and not as presented to sense. To distinguish this class of conceptions from those previously considered, and also from that presently to be noticed, we may designate this power of the mind as the Discursive or Reflective Power. Its results are notions of the understanding rather than impressions of sense, or ideas of reason.

      Conceptions not furnished by Sense.—The Intuitive Power.—We have considered thus far those intellectual operations which fall within three leading departments of mental activity;—the Presentative, Representative, and Discursive Powers. These operations all have reference directly or indirectly to sensible objects. The first regards them as present; the second represents them as absent; the third considers their properties and relations in the abstract.

      But the mind has also the faculty of forming ideas and conceptions not furnished by the senses. It departs from the sphere of sense, and deals with the super-sensible, with those primary ideas and first principles presupposed in all knowledge of the sensible. Such are the ideas of time, space, cause, the right, the beautiful. These are suggested by the objects of sense, but not directly derived from nor given by those objects. They are ideas of reason, rather than notions of understanding. They are awakened in the mind on occasions of sensible perception, but not conveyed to the mind through the senses, as in perception, nor directly derived from the object as in the case of the representative and discursive powers. This faculty we may call the Originative or Intuitive Power, in distinction from those previously considered.

      Summary of leading Divisions.—We have then four grand divisions of intellectual operations, under which the several specific faculties arrange themselves; viz., the Presentative, the Representative, the Discursive, and the Originative or Intuitive faculty. The first has to do with sensible objects, as present; the second has to do with the same class of objects as absent; the third deals with their abstract properties and relations; and the fourth has to do not with the sensible, in any form, but with the super-sensible.

      I believe the faculties of the intellect, in pure thinking, may all be reduced to those forms now specified, under these four leading divisions.

      Results of the preceding analysis in a tabular form:

      POWERS OF THE INTELLECT.

I. Presentative, Perception.
II. Representative, {1. Of the Actual, Memory.
{2. Of the Ideal, Imagination.
III. Reflective, {1. Synthetic, Generalization.
{2. Analytic, Reasoning.
IV. Intuitive, Original Conception.

      § III.—Historical Sketch—Various Divisions of the Mental Faculties.

      The earlier Division.—The general division of the powers of the mind, for a long time prevalent among the earlier modern philosophers, was into two chief departments, known under different names, but including under the one what we now term the intellect, under the other what we designate as the sensibilities and the will, which were not then, as now, distinguished from each other in the general division, but thrown into one department. Under the first of these departments, they included the thinking and reasoning powers, the strictly intellectual part of our nature; under the second, whatever brings the mind into action—the impelling and controlling power or principle—the affections, emotions, desires, volitions, etc. The names given to these two divisions varied with different writers, but the difference was chiefly in the name, the principle of division being the same. By some authors they were designated as the contemplative and the active powers, by others cognitive and motive. The latter was the nomenclature proposed by Hobbes. Others again adopted the terms understanding and will, by which to mark the two divisions; Locke, Reid, some of the French philosophers, and, in our own country, Edwards, followed this division. Stewart designates them, the one class as the intellectual, and the other as the active and moral powers. Brown objects to this phraseology on the ground that the intellectual powers are no less active than the other. He divides the mental powers or states primarily into what he calls external and internal affections of the mind, comprehending under the former all those mental states which are immediately preceded by and connected with the presence of some external object; under the latter, those states which are not thus immediately preceded. The latter class he divides into intellectual states and emotions, a division corresponding essentially to those of the authors previously mentioned, the emotions of Brown comprehending essentially the powers which others had termed motive, or active and moral.

      Prevalence of this Method.—This twofold division of the mental powers, under different names, as now stated, has been the one generally prevalent until a comparatively recent date. It may doubtless be traced, as Sir William Hamilton suggests, to a distinction made by Aristotle, into cognitive and appetent powers.

      The more recent Method.—The threefold division of the mental faculties very early came into use among philosophical and theological writers in this country, and is now very generally adopted by the more recent European writers of note, especially in France and Germany. According to this division the various affections and emotions constitute a department by themselves, distinct from the will or the voluntary principle. There are many reasons for such a distinction; they have been well stated by Professor Upham Cousin adopts and defends the threefold division, and previously still, Kant, in Germany, had distinguished the mental powers under the leading divisions of intelligence, sensibility, and desire.

       Table of Contents

       THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES.

       Table of Contents

      PRELIMINARY TOPICS.

      CHAPTER I.

      CONSCIOUSNESS.

      General Statement.—Before proceeding to investigate the several specific faculties of the intellect, as already classified, there are certain preliminary topics to be considered, certain mental phenomena, or mental states, involved more or less fully in all mental activity, and on that account hardly to be classed as specific faculties, yet requiring distinct consideration. Such are the mental states which we denominate as consciousness and attention.

      Definitions.—Consciousness is defined by Webster as the knowledge of sensations and mental operations, or of what passes in our own minds; by Wayland, as that condition of the mind in which it is cognizant of its own operations; by Cousin, as that function of the intelligence which gives us information of every thing which takes place in the interior of our minds; by Dr. Henry, translator of Cousin, as

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