∗ Analysis of the Human Mind, I., p. 172.Google Scholar

∗ Dissert, on Reid, p. 810.Google Scholar

† Supplem. to Reid, p. 932.Google Scholar

‡ Discussions, p. 48.Google Scholar

∗ Lectures, Vol. i., p. 193.Google Scholar

† Lectures I., p. 195.Google Scholar

∗ Elements of Philos. of Human Mind. Vol. i., p. 13 (Hamilton's Ed.) Google Scholar

∗ Essay on Philosophy of Perception.Google Scholar

∗ Lectures I., p. 288.Google Scholar

† Philos. of Perception.Google Scholar

‡ Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philosophy, pp. 120–125.Google Scholar

∗ He is contradicting his other statements, for instance, when he represents that his attention or Consciousness may be directed more especially to the “object known” in an act of knowledge; thus making this so-called “object known” (a mere unconscious nerve action) something different from the Consciousness to which it is revealed, as to an observer; when he had previously said that Consciousness was not “ to be considered even as an observer—the mental modes as phenomena observed.” Google Scholar

∗ For we do not think that, in the present state of our knowledge, we are warranted in believing that the presence or absence of Consciousness with the activity of certain nerve centres is dependent only upon the degree of intensity of action occurring in these centres alone, or upon the duration of their activity, though Sir W. Hamilton and others seem to intimate that it may depend upon some such cause.Google Scholar

∗ On this subject Dr. Carpenter makes the following interesting remarks:— “When we have been trying to recollect some name, phrase, occurrence, &c., and after vainly endeavouring all the expedients we can think of for bringing the desiderated idea to our minds, have abandoned the attempt as useless, it will often occur spontaneously a little while afterwards, suddenly flashing (as it were) before the consciousness; and this, although the mind has been engrossed in the meantime by some entirely different subject of contemplation, and cannot detect any link of association whereby the result has been obtained, notwithstanding that the whole train of thought which has passed through the mind in the interval may be most distinctly remembered. Now it is difficult, if not impossible, to account for this fact upon any other supposition than that a certain train of action has been set going in the cerebrum by the voluntary exertion which we at first made; and that this train continues in movement after our attention has been fixed upon some other object of thought, so that it goes on to the evolution of its result, not only without any continued exertion on our own parts, but also without our consciousness of any continued activity.”—Human Physiology, 1855, 5th Ed., p. 608.Google Scholar

∗ This view has been ably and forcibly advocated in the opening chapter of Dr. Maudsley's Physiology and Pathology of Mind .Google Scholar

† Lectures, vol. i., pp. 339–346.Google Scholar

‡ Exam. of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, 1865, p. 285.Google Scholar

∗ System of Philosophy. No. 21, p. 128. (Oct. 1868).Google Scholar

∗ Senses and Intellect, 3rd Ed, Appendix, p. 669.Google Scholar

† Idem, p. 83.Google Scholar

∗ On the ‘Muscular Sense,’ and on the Physiology of Thinking.—Brit. Med. Jrnl., May, 1869.Google Scholar

See article on “Sensation and Perception” in “Nature,” Dec., 1869.Google Scholar

∗ In order more clearly to point out what are the exact respects in which Prof. Bain's view differs from our own, we cannot refrain from quoting this additional passage. He says (loc., cit., p. 376):—“In Sensation we seem to have the sentient mind, and the thing felt—sentiens and sensum. Some account must be rendered of this twofold nature of sense and knowledge. If the something that knows, feels, perceives, be called Mind, what is the other something that is known, felt, perceived?” This other something, in an act of perception, Prof. Bain believes to be object-consciousness, or the external world in the only sense which it can exist for us.Google Scholar

As the reader will perceive, however, more fully presently, our interpretation of Sensation is quite different. We believe that sentiens corresponds with Consciousness rather than with Mind; and that sensum, can only be a mere unconscious cerebral nerve action—in this sense only should we be able to recognize the existence of an External World, even under its modified guise of an object-consciousness. States of Consciousness are our all in all; and the difference between what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls centrally initiated and peripherally-initiated feelings is quite capable of being explained physiologically. But as for an object-consciousness “in which all other sentient beings participate,” we must confess we cannot understand it. If it is the discrimination of ‘resistance’ to muscular energy, surely this discrimination is as much an affection of our own Sentiency or Consciousness, as the most passive appreciation of an odour would be; whilst if it is really something beyond the pale of Consciousness (subject-consciousness of Bain), then with us it could be nothing but a mere nerve action, such as we have termed unconscious.Google Scholar

∗ Loc. cit., vol. ii., p. 4.Google Scholar

∗ Principles of Psychology, 1855, pp. 610 and 563.Google Scholar