after the termination of his dazzling career, every thing on the earth was almost as if he had never been. A few phrases of Aristotle achieved a much more extensive and lasting conquest, and are, perhaps, even at this moment, exercising no small sway on the very minds which smile at them with scorn, and which, in tracing the extent of their melancholy influence on the progress of science, in centuries that are past, are unconscious that they are describing and lamenting prejudices, of which they are themselves still, in a great measure, the slaves. How many truths are there, of which we are ignorant, merely because one man lived! To return, however, to the objections, which we are to consider. Diversity of any kind, it is said, is inconsistent with absolute identity, in any case, and in the mind, which is by supposition indivisible, nothing can be added to it or taken away, and no internal change can take place in the relative positions and affinities of parts which it has not. Joy and sorrow are different in themselves; that which is joyful, therefore, and that which is sorrowful, cannot be precisely the same, or diversity of any kind might be consistent with absolute identity. That the joyful and sorrowful mind are precisely the same, is not asserted, if the sameness be meant to imply sameness of state; for it is admitted, that the state of the mind is different in joy and sorrow! and the only question is, whether this difference, to which we give the name of difference of state, be incompatible with complete and absolute sameness of substance. The true key to the sophistry is, as I have already said, that it assumes a false test of identity, borrowed, indeed, from the obvious appearances of the material world, but from these obvious appearances only. Because diversity of any kind seems, in these familiar cases, to be inconsistent with absolute identity, we draw hastily the universal conclusion, that it is inconsistent with absolute identity in any case. Paradoxical as the assertion may appear, however, we may yet safely assert, that, not in mind only, but, as we shall find, in matter also, some sort of diversity is so far from being inconsistent with absolute identity, that there is scarcely a single moment, if, indeed, there be a single moment, in which every atom in the universe is not constantly changing the tendencies that form its physical character, without the slightest alteration of its own absolute identity; so that the variety of states or tendencies of the same identical mind, in joy and sorrow, ignorance and knowledge, instead of being opposed, as you might think, by the general analogy of nature, is in exact harmony with that general analogy. It is from our view of matter, unquestionably, as implying, in all its visible changes of state, some loss of identity, some addition or subtraction of particles, or change of their form of combination, that the objection, with respect to the identity of the mind, during its momentary or lasting changes of state, is derived; and yet we shall find, that it is only when we consider even matter itself superficially and slightly, that we ascribe the changes which take place in it to circumstances that affect its identity. To view it more profoundly and accurately, is to observe, even in matter, constant changes of state, where the identity has continued entire, and changes as opposite, as those of the mind itself, when, at different periods, it presents itself in different aspects, as sad and cheerful, ignorant and wise, cruel and benevolent. The apparent mystery of the continued identity of one simple and indivisible mind, in all the variety of states of which it is susceptible, is thus, in a great measure, solved, when we find this union of variety and sameness ◄ be the result of a law that is not limited to our spiritual being, but extends to the whole universe, or at least to every thing which we know in the universe. It can no longer appear to us peculiarly wonderful, that the mind should exist at different moments in opposite states, and yet be the same in its own absolute nature, when we shall find that this compatibility is true of every atom around us, as much as of the mind itself. LECTURE XIV. CONTINUATION OF THE ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE DOC. TRINE OF MENTAL IDENTITY. My Lecture yesterday was, in a great measure, employed in illustrating the primary evidence of those principles of intuitive assent, to which we traced our belief of the identity of the mind as one and permanent, in all the variety of its ever-changing affections. I explained to you, particularly with a view to that vague and not very luminous controversy, in which Dr. Priestley was engaged with some philosophers of this part of the Island, in what manner the truth of these intuitive propositions must be assumed or admitted by all who reason, even by the wildest sceptic who professes to question them; pointing out to you, at the same time, the danger to which two of the strongest principles of our constitution, our indolence and our love of knowledge, alike expose us-the danger of believing too soon that we have arrived at truths which are susceptible of any minuter analysis. In conformity, therefore, with the caution which this danger renders necessary, we examined the belief of our continued identity; and we found it to possess the distinguishing marks, which I ventured to lay down as the three great characters of intuition, that it is universal, immediate, and irresistible;-so universal, that even the very maniac, who conceives that he was yesterday emperor of the Moon, believes that he is to-day the very person who had yesterday that empire-so immediate, that we cannot consider any two feelings of our mind as successive, without instantly considering them as feelings of our mind, that is to say, as states of one permanent substance, and so irresistible that even to doubt of our identity, if it were possible for us truly to doubt of it, would be to believe, that our mind, which doubts, is that very mind which has reflected and reasoned on the subject. Having thus stated the positive ground of belief, in our spiritual identity, I proceeded to consider the negative evidence which might arise from the confutation of the objections urged against it,-objections drawn from the supposed incompatibility of the changes of our mental affections, with that strict absolute identity of substance, to which nothing can have been added, and from which nothing can have been taken away. The test of identity, which this supposed incompatibility implies, I stated to be a very false one, transferred from matter to mind, and borrowed, not from a philosophical, but from a very superficial view even of matter itself. If it appear, on a closer inquiry, that matter itself, without the slightest loss of identity, exists at different moments, in states which are not merely different but opposite, and exists in an almost infinite variety of such states, it cannot surely seem wonderful, that the mind also should, without the slightest loss of its identity, exist at different moments, in states that are different and opposite. That a superficial view of matter, as it presents itself to our mere organs of sense, should lead us to form a different opinion, is, however, what might readily be supposed, because the analogies, which that superficial view presents, are of a kind that seem to mark a loss of identity whenever the state itself is altered. Per In experimental philosophy, and in the obvious natural phenomena of the material world, whenever a body changes its state, some addition or separation has previously taken place. Thus, water becomes steam by the addition, and it becomes ice by the loss, of a portion of that matter of heat which is termed by chemists caloric; which loss and addition are, of course, inconsistent with the notion of absolute numerical identity of the corpuscles, in the three states of water as a solid, a liquid, and a gaseous vapour. ception, by which the mind is metaphorically said to acquire knowledge, and forgetfulness, by which it is metaphorically said to lose knowledge, have, it must be confessed, a very striking analogy to these processes of corpuscular loss and gain; and since absolute identity seems to be inconsistent with a change of state in the one set of phenomena, with which we are constantly familiar, we find difficulty in persuading ourselves, that it is not inconsistent with a change of state in the other set also. It is a difficulty of the same kind as that which every one must have felt, when he learned, for the first time, the simple physical law, that matter is indifferent as to the states of motion and rest, and that it requires, therefore, as much force to destroy completely the motion of a body, as to give it that motion when at rest. We have not been accustomed to take into account the effects of friction, and of atmospherical resistance, in gradually destroying, without the interference of any visible force, the motion of a ball, which we are conscious of effort in rolling from our hand; and we think, therefore, that rest is the natural state of a body, and that it is the very nature of motion to cease spontaneously. "Dediscet animus sero, quod didicit diu." It is a very just saying of a French writer, that "it is not easy to persuade men to put their reason in the place of their eyes; and that when, for example, after a thousand proofs, they are reasonable enough to do their best to believe, that the planets are so many opaque, solid, habitable orbs, like our earth, they do not believe it in the same manner as they would have done if they had never looked upon them in another light. There still comes back upon their belief something of the first notion which they had, that clings to them with an obstinacy which it requires a continual effort to shake off."* It is, then, because some substantial loss or gain does truly take place in the changing phenomena of the bodies immediately around us, to which we are accustomed to pay our principal attention, that we learn to regard a change of state in matter as significant of loss of identity, and to feel, there-fore, some hesitation in admitting the mental changes of state to be consistent with absolute sameness of substance. Had our observation of the material phenomena been different, there would have been a corresponding difference. in our view of the changes of the phenomena of the mind. If, for example, instead of previously gaining or losing caloric,-as in the constitution of things of which we have our present experience, the parti* Fontenelle, Pluralité des Mondes, Conversat, 6me, VOL. I. 18 to coexist with perception, are still easily distinguishable from it; and, in like manner, when they arise from the intellectual states of memory, imagination, comparison, they are equally distinguishable from what we remember, or imagine, or compare. They form truly a separate order of the internal affections of the mind, as distinct from the intellectual phenomena, as the class, to which they both belong, is distinguishable from the class of external affections, that arise immediately from the presence of objects without. LECTURE XVII. CLASSIFICATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF MIND.-CLASS 1. EXTERNAL STATES.-INTRODUCTORY. In my last Lecture, gentlemen, I endeavoured to prepare the way, for arranging, in certain classes, that almost infinite variety of phenomena, which the mind exhibits,-pointing out to you the peculiar difficulty of such a classification, in the case of phenomena so indefinite and fugitive, as those of the mind, and the nature of that generalizing principle of analogy or resemblance, on which every classification, whether of the material or mental phenomena, must alike proceed. I then took a slight view of the primary, leading divisions of the phenomena of the mind, which have met with most general adoption, the very ancient division of them, as of two great departments, belonging to the understanding and the will,-and the similar division of them, as referable to two classes of powers, termed the intellectual and active powers of the mind. I explained to you the reasons, which led me to reject both these divisions, as at once incomplete, from not comprehending all the phenomena, and inaccurate, from confounding even those phenomena, which they may truly be considered as comprehending. After rejecting these, it became necessary to attempt some new arrangement, especially as we found reason to believe that some advantage could scarcely fail to arise from the attempt itself, even though it should fail as to its great object; and we, therefore, proceeded to consider and arrange the phenomena, as nearly as possible, in the same manner as we should have done, if no arrangement of them had ever been made before. In thus considering them, the first important distinction which occurred to us, related to their causes, or immediate antecedents, as foreign to the mind, or as belonging to the mind itself; a distinction too striking to be neglected as a ground of primary division. Whatever that may be, which feels and thinks, it has been formed to be susceptible of certain changes of state, in consequence of the mere presence of external objects, or at least of changes produced in our mere bodily organs, which, themselves, may be considered as external to the mind; and it is susceptible of certain other changes of state, without any cause external to itself, one state of mind being the immediate result of a former state of mind, in consequence of those laws of succession of thoughts and feelings, which He, who created the immortal soul of man, as a faint shadow of his own eternal spirit, has established in the constitution of our mental frame. In conformity with this distinction, we made our first division of the phenomena of the mind, into its external and internal affections; the word affection being used, by me, as the simplest term for expressing a mere change of state induced, in relation to the affecting cause, or the circumstances, whatever they may have been, by which the change was immediately preceded. The class of internal affections,-by far the more copious and various of the two, we divided into two great orders, our intellectual states of mind, and our emotions, words which are, perhaps, better understood, before any definition is attempted of them, than after it, but which are sufficiently intelligible without definition, and appear to exhaust completely the whole internal affections of the mind. We have sensations or perceptions of the objects that affect our bodily organs; these I term the sensitive or external affections of the mind; we remember objects-we imagine them in new situations-we compare their relations; these mere conceptions or notions of objects and their qualities, as elements of our general knowledge, are what I have termed the intellectual states of the mind; we are moved with certain lively feelings, on the consideration of what we thus perceive, or remember, or imagine, or compare, with feelings, for example, of beauty, or sublimity, or astonishment, or love, or hate, or hope, or fear; these, and various other vivid feelings, analogous to them, are our emotions. There is no portion of our consciousness, which does not appear to me to be included in one or other of these three divisions. To know all our sensitive states or affections,-all our intellectual states, and all our emotions, is to know all the states or phenomena of the mind; "Unde animus scire incipiat, quibus inchoet orsa I It must not be conceived, however, that, in dividing the class of internal affections of the mind, into the two distinct orders of intellectual states, and emotions; and, in speaking of our emotions as subsequent in their origin, wish to be understood, that these never are combined, at the same moment, in that sense of combination, as applied to the mind, which I have already explained too frequently, to need again to define and illustrate it. On the contrary, they very frequently concur; but, in all cases in which they do concur, it is easy for us to distinguish them by reflective analysis. The emotion of pity, for example, may continue in the mind, while we are intellectually planning means of relief, for the sufferers who occasioned it; but, though the pity and the reasoning coexist, we have little difficulty in separating them in our reflection. It is the same with all our vivid desires, which not merely lead to action, but accompany it. The sage, who in the silence of midnight, continues still those labours which the morning began, watching, with sleepless eye, the fate of some experiment, that almost promises to place within his hand the invisible thread, which leads into the labyrinths of nature, or exploring those secrets of the mind itself, by the aid of which he is afterwards to lay down rules of more accurate philosophizing, and to become the legislator of all who think, is not cheered, in his toils, merely by occasional anticipations of the truths that await his search. The pleasure of future • Gray de Principiis Cogitandi, Lib. I. v. 1—5. |