Chapter VI

(see pp. 170 ff.). The mind of the child enjoying the simple lemonade flavor and that of the same child grown up and analyzing it are in two entirely different conditions. Subjectively considered, the two states of mind are two altogether distinct sorts of fact. The later mental state says 'this is the _same flavor (or fluid)_ which that earlier state perceived as simple,' but that does not make the two states themselves identical. It is nothing but a case of learning more and more _about_ the same topics of discourse or things.--Many of these topics, however, must be confessed to resist all analysis, the various colors for example. He who sees blue and yellow 'in' a certain green means merely that when green is confronted with these other colors he sees relations of _similarity_. He who sees abstract 'color' in it means merely that he sees a similarity between it and all the other objects known as colors. (Similarity itself cannot ultimately be accounted for by an identical abstract element buried in all the similars, as has been already shown, p. 492 ff.) He who sees abstract paleness, intensity, purity, in the green means other similarities still. These are all outward determinations of that special green, knowledges _about_ it, _zufällige Ansichten_, as Herbart would say, not _elements_ of its composition. Compare the article by Meinong in the Vierteljahrschrift für wiss. Phil., xii. 324.

[2] See Vol. I, p. 221.

[3] Those who wish a fuller treatment than Martin's Human Body affords may be recommended to Bernstein's 'Five Senses of Man,' in the International Scientific Series, or to Ladd's or Wundt's Physiological Psychology. The completest compendium is L. Hermann's Handbuch der Physiologie, vol. iii.

[4] "The sensations which we _postulate_ as the signs or occasions of our perceptions" (A. Seth: Scottish Philosophy, p. 89). "Their existence is _supposed_ only because, without them, it would be impossible to account for the complex phenomena which are directly present in consciousness" (J. Dewey: Psychology, p. 34). Even as great an enemy of Sensation as T. H. Green has to allow it a sort of hypothetical existence under protest. "Perception presupposes feeling" (Contemp. Review, vol. xxxi. p. 747). Cf. also such passages as those in his Prolegomena to Ethics, §§ 48, 49.--Physiologically, the sensory and the reproductive or associative processes may wax and wane independently of each other. Where the part directly due to stimulation of the sense-organ preponderates, the thought has a sensational character, and differs from other thoughts in the sensational direction. Those thoughts which lie farthest in that direction we call _sensations_, for practical convenience, just as we call _conceptions_ those which lie nearer the opposite extreme. But we no more have conceptions pure than we have pure sensations. Our most rarefied intellectual states involve some bodily sensibility, just as our dullest feelings have some intellectual scope. Common-sense and common psychology express this by saying that the mental state is composed of distinct fractional _parts_, one of which is sensation, the other conception. We, however, who believe every mental state to be an integral thing (Vol. I. p. 276) cannot talk thus, but must speak of the degree of sensational or intellectual character, or function, of the mental state. Professor Hering puts, as usual, his finger better upon the truth than any one else. Writing of visual perception, he says: "It is inadmissible in the present state of our knowledge to assert that first and last the same retinal picture arouses exactly the same _pure sensation_, but that this sensation, in consequence of practice and experience, is differently _interpreted_ the last time, and elaborated into a different perception from the first. For the only real _data_ are, on the one hand, the physical picture on the retina,--and that is both times the same; and, on the other hand, the resultant state of consciousness (_ausgeloste Empfindungscomplex_)--and that is both times distinct. _Of any third thing, namely, a pure sensation thrust between the retinal and the mental pictures, we know nothing. We can then, if we wish to avoid all hypothesis, only say that the nervous apparatus reacts upon the same stimulus differently the last time from the first, and that in consequence the consciousness is different too._" (Hermann's Hdbch., iii. i. 567-8.)

[5] Yet even writers like Prof. Bain will deny, in the most gratuitous way, that sensations know anything. "It is evident that the lowest or most restricted form of sensation does not contain an element of knowledge. The mere state of mind called the sensation of scarlet is not knowledge, although a necessary preparation for it." 'Is not knowledge _about_ scarlet' is all that Professor Bain can rightfully say.

[6] By simple ideas of sensation Locke merely means sensations.

[7] Essay c. H. U., bk. ii. ch. xxiii. § 29; ch. xxv. § 9.

[8] _Op. cit_. bk. ii. ch. ii. § 2.

[9] "So far is it from being true that we necessarily have as many feelings in consciousness at one time as there are inlets to the sense then played upon, that it is a fundamental law of pure sensation that each momentary state of the organism yields but one feeling, however numerous may be its parts and its exposures.... To this original Unity of consciousness it makes no difference that the tributaries to the single feeling are beyond the organism instead of within it, in an outside object with several sensible properties, instead of in the living body with its several sensitive functions.... The unity therefore is not made by 'association' of several components; but the plurality is formed by _dissociation_ of unsuspected varieties within the unity; the substantive thing being no product of synthesis, but the residuum of differentiation." (J. Martineau: A Study of Religion (1888), p. 193-4.) Compare also F. H. Bradley, Logic, book i. chap. ii.

[10] Such passages as the following abound in anti-sensationalist literature: "Sense is a kind of dull, confused, and stupid perception obtruded upon the soul from without, whereby it perceives the alterations and motions within its own body, and takes cognizance of individual bodies existing round about it, but does not clearly comprehend what they are nor penetrate into the nature of them, it being intended by nature, as Plotinus speaks, not so properly for _knowledge_ as for the _use of the body_. For the soul suffering under that which it perceives by way of _passion_ cannot master or _Conquer_ it, that is to say, know or understand it. For so Anaxagoras in Aristotle very fitly expresses the nature of knowledge and intellection under the notion of _Conquering_. Wherefore it is necessary, since the mind understands all things, that it should be free from mixture and passion, for this end, as Anaxagoras speaks, that it may be able to _master and conquer_ its objects, that is to say, to _know and understand_ them. In like manner Plotinus, in his book of Sense and Memory, makes to _suffer_ and to _be conquered_ all one, as also to _know_ and to _conquer_; for which reason he concludes that that which suffers doth not know.... Sense that suffers from external objects lies as it were prostrate under them, and is overcome by them.... Sense therefore is a certain kind of drowsy and somnolent perception of that passive part of the soul which is as it were asleep in the body, and acts concretely with it.... It is an energy arising from the body and a certain kind of drowsy or sleeping life of the soul blended together with it. The perceptions of which compound, or of the soul as it were half asleep and half awake, are confused, indistinct, turbid, and encumbered cogitations very different from the energies of the noetical part,... which are free, clear, serene, satisfactory, and awakened cogitations. That is to say, knowledges." Etc., etc., etc. (R. Cudworth: Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, bk. iii. chap. ii.) Similarly Malebranche: "THÉODORE.--Oh, oh, Ariste! God knows pain, pleasure, warmth, and the rest. But he does not feel these things. He knows pain, since he knows what that modification of the soul is in which pain consists. He knows it because he alone causes it in us (as I shall presently prove), and he knows what he does. In a word, he knows it because his knowledge has no bounds. But he does not feel it, for if so he would be unhappy. To know pain, then, is not to feel it. ARISTE.--That is true. But to feel it is to know it, is it not? THÉODORE.--No indeed, since God does not feel it in the least, and yet he knows it perfectly. But in order not to quibble about terms, if you will have it that to feel pain is to know it, agree at least that it is not to know it clearly, that it is not to know it by light and by evidence--in a word, that it is not to know its nature; in other words and to speak exactly, it is not to know it at all. To feel pain, for example, is to feel ourselves unhappy without well knowing either what we are or what is this modality of our being which makes us unhappy.... Impose silence on your senses, your imagination, and your passions, and you will hear the pure voice of inner truth, the clear and evident replies of our common master. Never confound the evidence which results from the comparison of ideas with the liveliness of the sensations which touch and thrill you. The livelier our sensations and feelings (_sentiments_) are, the more darkness do they shed. The more terrible or agreeable are our phantoms, and the more body and reality they appear to have, the more dangerous are they and fit to lead us astray." (Entretiens sur la Métaphysique, 3me Entretien, _ad init._) Malebranche's Théodore prudently does not try to explain how God's 'infinite felicity' is compatible with his not feeling joy.

[11] Green: Prolegomena, §§ 20, 28.

[12] Introd. to Hume, §§ 146, 188. It is hard to tell just what this apostolic human being but strenuously feeble writer means by relation. Sometimes it seems to stand for system of related fact. The ubiquity of the 'psychologist's fallacy' (see Vol. I p. 196) in his pages, his incessant leaning on the confusion between the thing known, the thought that knows it, and the farther things known about that thing and about that thought by later and additional thoughts, make it impossible to clear up his meaning. Compare, however, with the utterances in the text such others as these: "The waking of Self-consciousness from the sleep of sense is an absolute new beginning, and nothing can come within the 'crystal sphere' of intelligence except as it is determined by intelligence. What sense is to sense is nothing for thought. What sense is to thought, it is as determined _by_ thought. There can, therefore, be no 'reality' in sensation to which the world of thought can be referred." (Edward Caird's Philosophy of Kant, 1st ed. pp. 393-4.) "When," says Green again, "feeling a pain or pleasure of heat, I perceive it to be connected with the action of approaching the fire, am I not perceiving a relation _of which one constituent, at any rate, is a simple sensation? The true answer is, No._" "Perception, in its simplest form...--perception as the first sight or touch of an object in which nothing but what is seen or touched is recognized--_neither is nor contains sensation_" (Contemp. Rev., xxxi. pp. 746, 750.) "Mere sensation is in truth a phrase that represents no reality." "Mere feeling, then, as a matter unformed by thought, has no place in the world of facts, in the cosmos of possible experience." (Prolegomena to Ethics, §§ 46, 50.)--I have expressed myself a little more fully on this subject in Mind, x. 27 ff.

[13] Stumpf: Tonpsychologie, i. pp. 7, 8. Hobbes's phrase, _sentire semper idem et non sentire ad idem recidunt_, is generally treated as the original statement of the relativity doctrine. J. S. Mill (Examn. of Hamilton, p. 6) and Bain (Senses and Intellect, p. 321; Emotions and Will, pp. 550, 570-2; Logic, i. p. 2; Body and Mind, p. 81) are subscribers to this doctrine. Cf. also J. Mill's Analysis, J. S. Mill's edition, II. 11, 12.

[14] We can steadily hear a note for half an hour. The differences between the senses are marked. Smell and taste seem soon to get fatigued.

[15] In the popular mind it is mixed up with that entirely different doctrine of the 'Relativity of Knowledge' preached by Hamilton and Spencer. This doctrine says that our knowledge is relative _to us_, and is not of the object as the latter is in itself. It has nothing to do with the question which we have been discussing, of whether our objects of knowledge contain absolute terms or consist altogether of relations.

[16] What follows in brackets, as far as p. 27, is from the pen of my friend and pupil Mr. E. B. Delabarre.

[17] These phenomena have close analogues in the phenomena of contrast presented by the temperature-sense (see W. Preyer in Archiv f. d. ges. Phys., Bd. xxv. p. 79 ff.). Successive contrast here is shown in the fact that a warm sensation appears warmer if a cold one has just previously been experienced; and a cold one colder, if the preceding one was warm. If a finger which has been plunged in hot water, and another which has been in cold water, be both immersed in lukewarm water, the same water appears cold to the former finger and warm to the latter. In simultaneous contrast, a sensation of warmth on any part of the skin tends to induce the sensation of cold in its immediate neighborhood; and _vice versâ_. This may be seen if we press with the palm on two metal surfaces of about an inch and a half square and three-fourths inch apart; the skin between them appears distinctly warmer. So also a small object of exactly the temperature of the palm appears warm if a cold object, and cold if a warm object, touch the skin near it.

[18] Helmholtz, Physiolog. Optik, p. 392.

[19] _Loc. cit._ p. 407.

[20] _Loc. cit._ p. 408.

[21] _Loc. cit._ p. 406.

[22] E. Hering, in Hermann's Handbuch d. Physiologie, iii. 1, p. 565.

[23] Hering: 'Zur Lehre vom Lichtsinne.'--Of these experiments the following (found on p. 24 ff.) may be cited as a typical one: "From dark gray paper cut two strips 3-4 cm. long and 1/2 cm. wide, and lay them on a background of which one half is white and the other half deep black, in such a way that one strip lies on each side of the border-line and parallel to it, and at least 1 cm. distant from it. Fixate 1/2 to 1 minute a point on the border-line between the strips. One strip appears much brighter than the other. Close and cover the eyes, and the negative after-image appears.... The difference in brightness of the strips in the after-image is in general much greater than it appeared in direct vision.... This difference in brightness of the strips by no means always increases and decreases with the difference in brightness of the two halves of the background.... A phase occurs in which the difference in brightness of the two halves of the background entirely disappears, and yet both after-images of the strips are still very clear, one of them brighter and one darker than the background, which is equally bright on both halves. Here can no longer be any question of contrast-effect, because the _conditio sine quâ non_ of contrast, namely, the differing brightness of the ground, is no longer present. This proves that the different brightness of the after-images of the strips must have its ground in a different state of excitation of the corresponding portions of the retina, and from this follows further that both these portions of the retina were differently stimulated during the original observation; for the different after-effect demands here a different fore-effect.... In the original arrangement, the objectively similar strips appeared of different brightness, because both corresponding portions of the retina were truly differently excited."

[24] Helmholtz, Physiolog. Optik, p. 407.

[25] In Archiv f. d. ges. Physiol., Bd. xli. §. 1 ff.

[26] Helmholtz, _loc. cit._ p. 412.

[27] See Hering: Archiv f. d. ges. Physiol., Bd. xli. S. 358 ff.

[28] Hering: Archiv f. d. ges. Physiol., Bd. xl. S. 172 ff.; Delabarre: American Journal of Psychology, ii. 636.

[29] Hering: Archiv f. d. ges. Physiol., Bd. xli. S. 91 ff.

[30] Die Gesichtsempfindungen u. ihre Analyse, p. 128.

[31] Mr. Delabarre's contribution ends here.

[32] Physiol. Psych., i. 351, 458-60. The full inanity of the law of relativity is best to be seen in Wundt's treatment, where the great '_allgemeiner Gesetz der Beziehung_,' invoked to account for Weber's law as well as for the phenomena of contrast and many other matters, can only be defined as a tendency _to feel all things in relation to each other_! Bless its little soul! But why does it change the things so, when it thus feels them in relation?

[33] Ladd: Physiol. Psych., p. 348.

[34] Mind, x. 567.

[35] Zwangemässige Lichtempfindung durch Schall (Leipzig, 1881).

[36] Pflüger's Archiv, xlii. 154.

[37] Physiological Psychology, 385, 387. See also such passages as that in Bain; The Senses and the Intellect, pp. 364-6.

[38] "Especially must we avoid all attempts, whether avowed or concealed, to account for the _spatial_ qualities of the presentations of sense by merely describing the qualities of the simple sensations and the modes of their combination. It is position and extension in space which constitutes the very peculiarity of the objects as _no longer_ mere sensations or affections of the mind. As sensations, they are neither _out_ of ourselves nor possessed of the qualities indicated by the word spread-out." (Ladd, _op. cit._ p. 391.)

[39] A. Riehl: Der Philosophischer Kriticismus, Bd. ii. Theil ii. p. 64.

[40] On Intelligence, part ii. bk. ii. chap. ii. §§ vii, viii. Compare such statements as these: "The consequence is that when a sensation has for its usual condition the presence of an object more or less distant from our bodies, and experience has once made us acquainted with this distance, we shall situate our sensation at this distance.--This, in fact, is the case with sensations of hearing and sight. The peripheral extremity of the acoustic nerve is in the deep-seated chamber of the ear. That of the optic nerve is in the most inner recess of the eye. But still, in our present state, we never situate our sensations of sound or color in these places, but without us, and often at a considerable distance from us.... All our sensations of color are thus projected out of our body, and clothe more or less distant objects, furniture, walls, houses, trees, the sky, and the rest. This is why, when we afterwards reflect on them, we cease to attribute them to ourselves; they are alienated and detached from us, so far as to appear different from us. Projected from the nervous surface in which we localize the majority of the others, the tie which connected them to the others and to ourselves is undone.... Thus, all our sensations are wrongly situated, and the red color is no more extended on the arm-chair than the sensation of tingling is situated at my fingers' ends. They are all situated in the sensory centres of the encephalon; all appear situated elsewhere, and a common law allots to each of them its apparent situation." (vol. ii. pp. 47-53.)--Similarly Schopenhauer: "I will now show the same by the sense of sight. The immediate _datum_ is here limited to the sensation of the retina which, it is true, admits of considerable diversity, but at bottom reverts to the impression of light and dark with their shades, and that of colors. This sensation is through and through subjective, that is, inside of the organism and under the skin." (Schopenhauer: Satz vom Grunde, p. 58.) This philosopher then enumerates _seriatim_ what the Intellect does to make the originally subjective sensation objective: 1) it turns it bottom side up; 2) it reduces its doubleness to singleness; 3) it changes its flatness to solidity; and 4) it projects it to a distance from the eye. Again: "_Sensations_ are what we call the impressions on our senses, in so far as they come to our consciousness as states of our own body, especially of our nervous apparatus; we call them _perceptions_ when we form out of them the representation of outer objects." (Helmholtz: Tonempfindungen, 1870, p. 101.)--Once more: "Sensation is always accomplished in the psychic centres, but it manifests itself at the excited part of the periphery. In other words, one is conscious of the phenomenon in the nervous centres,... but one perceives it in the peripheric organs. This phenomenon depends on the experience of the sensations themselves, in which there is a _reflection_ of the subjective phenomenon and a tendency on the part of perception to return as it were to the external cause which has roused the mental state because the latter is connected with the former." (Sergi: Psychologie Physiologique (Paris, 1888), p. 189.)--The clearest and best passage I know is in Liebmann: Der Objective Anblick (1869), pp. 67-72, but it is unfortunately too long to quote.

[41] This is proved by Weber's device of causing the head to be firmly pressed against a support by another person, whereupon the direction of traction ceases to be perceived.

[42] Lotze: Med. Psych., 428-433; Lipps: Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens, 582.

[43] Injuries to Nerves (Philadelphia, 1872), p. 350 ff.

[44] In reality it probably means only a restless movement of desire, which he might make even after he had become aware of his impotence to touch the object.

[45] Revue Philosophique, vii. p. 1 ff., an admirable critical article, in the course of which M. Janet gives a bibliography of the cases in question. See also Dunan: _ibid._ xxv. 165-7. They are also discussed and similarly interpreted by T. K. Abbot: Sight and Touch (1864),

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