RELATIVE TERMS.
The explanation of Relative Terms will run to a considerable length. The mode in which they are employed as marks is peculiar; and has suggested the belief of something very mysterious in that which is marked by them. It is therefore necessary to be minute in exhibiting the combinations of ideas of which they are the names.
One peculiarity of Relative Terms, which it is necessary for us to begin with noticing, is, that they always exist in pairs. There is no relative without its correlate, either actual or implied. Thus, we have Father and Son; Husband and Wife; Master and Servant; Subject and King; also High and Low; Right and Left; Antecedent and Consequent.
In these cases of relative pairs, the two names are two different words; in other cases, one word serves for both names. Of this sort are the words Brother, Sister, Cousin, Friend, Like, Equal, and so on. When we say that John is brother, we always mean of some one else, as James, whom we also call brother. We call Jane the sister of Ann, as we call Ann the sister of Jane. When we say that A is equal to B, we signify, by the same expression, that B is equal to A; and so on.
It is always to be remembered, that, in speaking, we are only indicating our own trains; and that of 7 course every word in a mark of some part of a train. The parts of our trains to which we give relative names, are either simple, or complex. The simple, are either the simple sensations, or the ideas of those sensations. The complex, are either those clusters of simple ideas which we call the ideas of objects, because they correspond with clustered sensations; or they are the clusters which the mind puts together arbitrarily for its own purposes.
If it is asked, why we give names in pairs? The general answer immediately suggests itself; it is because the things named present themselves in pairs; that is, are joined by association. But as many things are joined in pairs by association, which do not receive relative names, the cause may still be inquired of the classification. What is the reason that some pairs do, while many more do not, receive relative names? The cause is the same by which we are guided in imposing other names. As the various combinations of ideas are far too numerous for naming, and we are obliged to make a selection, we name those which we find it of most importance to have named, omitting the rest. It is a question of convenience, solved by experience. It will be seen more distinctly hereafter that relative names are one of the contrivances for epitomising; and that they enable us to express ourselves with fewer words than we should be able to do without them.3
3 No part of the Analysis is more valuable than the simple explanation here given of a subject which has seemed so mysterious to some of the most enlightened and penetrating philosophers, down even to the present time. The only difference between relative names and any others consist in their being given in pairs; and the reason of their being given in pairs is not the existence between two things, of a mystical bond called a Relation, and supposed to have a kind of shadowy and abstract reality, but a very simple peculiarity in the concrete fact which the two names are intended to mark.
In order to make quite clear the nature of this peculiarity, it will be desirable to advert once more to the double mode of signification of concrete general names, viz. that while they denote (or are names of) objects, they connote some fact relating to those objects. The fact connoted by any name, relative or not, is always of the same nature; it is some bodily or mental feeling, or some set of bodily or mental feelings, accompanying or produced by the object. But in the case of the ordinary names of objects, this fact concerns one object only, or rather only that one object and the sentient mind. The peculiarity in the case of relative names is, that the fact connoted concerns two objects, and cannot be understood without thinking of them both. It is a phenomenon in which two objects play a part. There is no greater mystery in a phenomenon which concerns two objects, than in a phenomenon which concerns only one. For example; the fact connoted by the word cause, is a fact in which the thing which is the cause, is implicated along with another thing which is the effect. The facts connoted by the word parent, and also by the word son or daughter, are a long series of phenomena of which both the parent and the child are parts; and the series of phenomena would not be that which the name parent expresses, unless the child formed a part of it, nor would it be that which the name son or daughter expresses, unless the parent formed a part of it. Now, when in a series of phenomena of any interest to us two objects are implicated, we naturally give names expressive of it to both the objects, and these are relative names. The two correlative names denote two different objects, the cause and the effect, or the parent and son; but though what they denote is different, what they connote is in a certain sense the same: both names connote the same set of facts, considered as giving one name to the one object, another name to the other. This set of facts, which is connoted by both the correlative names, was called by the old logicians the ground of the relation, fundamentum relationis. The fundamentum of any relation is the facts, fully set out, which are the reason of giving to two objects two correlative names. In some cases both objects seem to receive the same name; in the relation of likeness, both objects are said to be like; in the relation of equality, both are said to be equal. But even here the duality holds, on a stricter examination: for the first object (A) is not said to be like, absolutely, but to be like the second object (B); the second is not said to be like absolutely, but to be like the first. Now though “like” is only one name, “like A” is not the same name as “like B,” so that there is really, in this case also, a pair of names.
From these considerations we see that objects are said to be related, when there is any fact, simple or complex, either apprehended by the senses or otherwise, in which they both figure. Any objects, whether physical or mental, are related, or are in a relation, to one another, in virtue of any complex state of consciousness into which they both enter; even if it be a no more complex state of consciousness than that of merely thinking of them together. And they are related to each other in as many different ways, or in other words, they stand in as many distinct relations to one another, as there are specifically distinct states of consciousness of which they both form parts. As these may be innumerable, the possible relations not only of any one thing with others, but of any one thing with the same other, are infinitely numerous and various. But they may all be reduced to a certain number of general heads of classification, constituting the different kinds of Relation: each of which requires examination apart, to ascertain what, in each case, the state of consciousness, the cluster or train of sensations or thoughts, really is, in which the two objects figure, and which is connoted by the correlative names. This examination the author accordingly undertakes: and thus, under the guise of explaining names, he analyses all the principal cases which the world and the human mind present, of what are called Relations between things.—Ed.
8 I. The only, or at least the principal, occasions, for naming simple sensations, or simple ideas, in pairs, seem to be these:
1 When we take them into simultaneous view, as such and such;
2. When we take them into simultaneous view, as antecedent and consequent.
II. The principal occasions on which we name the complex ideas, called objects, in pairs, are these four:
9 1. When we speak of them as having an order in space;
2. When we speak of them as having an order in time;
3. When we speak of them as agreeing or disagreeing in quantity;
4. As agreeing or disagreeing in quality.
III. The occasions on which we name the complex ideas of our own formation in pairs, are,
10 1. When we speak of them as composed of the same or different simple ideas;
2. When we speak of them as antecedent and consequent.
Whatever it may be necessary to remark, respecting relative terms, will occur in the consideration of these several cases.
I. 1. We speak of two sensations, as Same or Different, Like or Unlike.
These words are Relatives of the double signification; each individual of the pair has the same name. When we say that sensation A is the “same” with 11 sensation B, we mean that B also is the “same” with A; “different,” “like,” and “unlike,” have the same double application.
Another ambiguity needs to be noted in the word “same.” When there are two things, they are not the same thing; for “same,” in the strict sense of the word, means one thing, and that only. Here it means a great degree of likeness, a sense in which, with respect to sensations and ideas, it is very frequently used.
Of two sensations, or two ideas, we, in truth, can only say, that they are like or unlike; or, that the one comes first, the other after it.
It is now necessary to attend very carefully to what happens, when we say that two sensations are like, or that they are unlike.
First of all, we have the two sensations. But what is it to have two sensations? It is merely to be conscious of a change. But to be conscious of a change in sensation, is sensation. It is an essential part of the process. Without it we should not be sentient beings. To have sensation, and not to be conscious of any change, is to have but one sensation continued. We have already seen that this is a state which seems incapable of being distinguished from that of having no sensation. At any rate, what we mean by a sentient being, is not a being with one unvaried sensation, but a being with sensations continually varied; the varying being a necessary part of the having more sensations than one; and the varying, and the being conscious of the variation, being not two things, but one and the same thing. Having two sensations, therefore, is not only having sensation, but the only 12 thing which can, in strictness, be called having sensation; and the having two, and knowing they are two, which are not two things, but one and the same thing, is not only sensation, and nothing else than sensation, but the only thing which can, in strictness, be called sensation. The having a new sensation, and knowing that it is new, are not two things, but one and the same thing.4
4 The author is here endeavouring to express the most fundamental fact of the consciousness—the necessity of change, or transition from one state to another in order to our being conscious. He approaches very near to, without exactly touching, the inference that all consciousness, all sensation, all knowledge must be of doubles; the state passed from and the state passed to, are equally recognised by us. Opening the eyes to the light, for the first time, we know a contrast,—a present light, a past privation—but for the one we should not have known the other. Any single thing is unknowable by us; its relative opposite is a part of its very existence.
In a former page it is stated that relative names are one of the conveniences of epitomising. This is a narrow view to take of them. They are an essential part of language; they are demanded by the intrinsic relativity of all nameable things. If we have a thing called “light,” we have also another thing but for which light could not be known by us, “dark.” It is expedient to have names for both elements of the mutually dependent couple. And so everywhere. Language would be insufficient for its purposes if it did not provide the means of expressing the correlative (called also the negative) of every thing named.—B.
The case between sensation and sensation, resembles that between sensation and idea. How do I know that an idea is not a sensation? Who ever thought of asking the question? Is not the having an idea, 13 and the knowing it as an idea, the same thing? The having without the knowing is repugnant. The misfortune is, that the word, know, has associations linked with it, which have nothing to do with this case, but which intrude themselves along with the word, and make a complexity, where otherwise there would be none.
This is a matter which deserves the greatest attention. One of the most unfortunate cases of the illusions, which the close association of ideas with words has produced, is created by ideas clinging to words when they ought to be disjoined from them, and mixing themselves by that means with the ideas under consideration, when they ought to be considered wholly distinct from them. Nothing was of more importance, than that the phenomenon, to which we are just now directing our attention, the very first ingredient in the great mental composition, should be accurately understood, and nothing mixed up with it which did not truly belong to it.
There is no doubt that in one of its senses, knowledge is synonymous with sensation. If I am asked what is my knowledge of pain? I answer, the feeling of it, the having it. The blind man has not the knowledge of colours; the meaning is, he has not the sensations: if deaf also, he is without the knowledge, that is, the sensations, of sounds: suppose him void of all other sensations, you suppose him void of knowledge. In many cases, however, we arrive at knowledge, by certain steps; by something of a process. The word, know, is most frequently applied to those cases. When we know, by mere sensation, we say we see, we hear, and so on; when we know by mere ideas, 14 or rather ideation, if we could use such a word, we say we conceive, we think. The word know, therefore, being almost constantly joined with the idea of a process, it is exceedingly difficult, when we apply it to sensation, not to have the idea of a process at the same time; and thus exceedingly difficult to conceive that sensation, and knowing, in this case, are purely synonymous.
As the knowing I have an idea, is merely having the idea; as the having a sensation, and knowing I have a sensation; the knowing, for example, that I have the pain of the toothache, and the having that pain; are not two things, but one and the same thing; so the having a change of sensation, and knowing I have it, are not two things but one and the same thing.
Having a change, I have occasion to mark that change. The change has taken place in a train of feelings. I call the first part by one name, the last by another, and the marking of the change is effected. Suppose that, without any organ of sense but the eye, my first sensation is red, my next green. The whole process is sensation. Yet the green is not the red. What we call making the distinction, therefore, has taken place, and it is involved in the sensation.
My names, green, and red, thus applied, are absolute names. The one has no reference to the other. Suppose that after green, I have the sensations, blue, yellow, violet, white, black; and that I mark them respectively by these names. These are still absolute names. Each marks a particular sensation, and does nothing more. But, now, suppose that, after my sensations red, green, blue, &c., I have the sensation 15 red again; that I recognise it as like the sensation I had first, and that I have a desire to mark that recognition; it remains to explain what are the steps of this process.
Having the sensation a second time needs no explanation; it is the same thing as having it the first. But what happens in recognising that it is similar to a former sensation?
Beside the Sensation, in this case, there is an Idea. The idea of the former sensation is called up by, that is, associated with, the new sensation. As having a sensation, and a sensation, and knowing them, that is, distinguishing them, are the same thing; and having an idea, and an idea, is knowing them; so, having an idea and a sensation, and distinguishing the one from the other, are the same thing. But, to know that I have the idea and the sensation, in this case, is not all; I observe, that the sensation is like the idea. What is this observation of likeness? Is it any thing but that distinguishing of one feeling from another, which we have recognised to be the same thing as having two feelings? As change of sensation is sensation; as change, from a sensation to an idea, differs from change to a sensation, in nothing but this, that the second feeling in the latter change is an idea, not a sensation; and as the passing from one feeling to another is distinguishing; the whole difficulty seems to be resolved; for undoubtedly the distinguishing differences and similarities, is the same thing; a similarity being nothing but a slight difference.5 As 16 change from red to green, and knowing the change, or from a sensation of sight, to one of any other of the senses, the most different, is all sensation; so change from one shade of red to another, is assuredly sensation. Its being a different shade consists in my feeling of it, that is, in my sensation.
5 More properly Similarity is “agreement in difference.” Difference or discrimination is one thing, one element of knowledge or cognition; Similarity or agreement in difference is another thing, the second or completing element of knowledge. The two work together in closest intimacy, but they should neither be looked upon as the same fact, nor as merely a various shading of the same fact. Without difference there would be no similarity; but similarity is difference and something more. At their roots or first origins, the two processes lie in almost undistinguishable closeness; but in their developments they run wide apart. No fact or attribute is known, or mentally possessed, without the union of many shocks of difference with many shocks of identity, or agreement in difference.—B.
Passing from red to red, red, red, through a succession of distinguishable shades, is one train of pure sensation: passing from red to green, blue, tasting, smelling, hearing, touching, is another train of pure sensation; that these are not the same trains, but different trains, consists in their being felt to be so; they would not be different, but for the feeling: and that a feeling is different, and known to be so, are not two things, but one and the same thing. Having two such trains, I want marks to distinguish them. For this purpose, I invent the words “same,” “similar,” and their contraries; by means of which, my object is attained. I call the parts of a train, such as the first, “same,” or “similar;” those of a train like the last, “different,” “dissimilar.”
By these relative terms, we name the sensations in pairs. When we say, same, we mean that sensations 17 A, and B, are the same; different, that A, and B, are different; like and unlike, the same. By these words we have four pairs of relative terms.
| A. | B. |
| same | same |
| different | different |
| like | like |
| unlike | unlike. |
The feeling is perfectly analogous in the case of the ideas of those sensations; and the naming is the same. Thus the idea of red, green, and so on, and the ideas of the different shades of red are distinguished from one another by the ideas themselves. To have ideas different and ideas distinguished, are synonymous expressions; different and distinguished, meaning exactly the same thing.
The sensations above mentioned, and their ideas, have the same absolute names: thus, red is at once the name of the sensation, and the name of the idea; green, at once the name of the sensation and the idea; sweet, at once the name of the sensation and the idea. The relative terms, it is obvious, have the same extent of application. Same, different, like, and unlike, are names of pairs of ideas, as well as pairs of sensations.
It seems, therefore, to be made clear, that, in applying to the simple sensations and ideas their absolute names, which are names of classes, as red, green, sweet, bitter; and also applying to them names which denote them in pairs, as such and such; there is nothing whatsoever but having the sensations, having the ideas, and making marks for them.6
6 The author commences his survey of Relations with the most universal of them all. Likeness and Unlikeness; and he examines these as subsisting between simple sensations or ideas; for whatever be the true theory of likeness or unlikeness as between the simple elements, the same, in essentials, will serve for the likenesses or unlikenesses of the wholes compounded of them.
Examining, then, what constitutes likeness between two sensations (meaning two exactly similar sensations experienced at different times); he says, that to feel the two sensations to be alike, is one and the same thing with having the two sensations. Their being alike is nothing but their being felt to be alike; their being unlike is nothing but their being felt to be unlike. The feeling of unlikeness is merely that feeling of change, in passing from the one to the other, which makes them two, and without which we should not be conscious of them at all. The feeling of likeness, is the being reminded of the former sensation by the present, that is, having the idea of the former sensation called up by the present, and distinguishing them as sensation and idea.
It does not seem to me that this mode of describing the matter explains anything, or leaves the likenesses and unlikenesses of our simple feelings less an ultimate fact than they were before. All it amounts to is, that likeness and unlikeness are themselves only a matter of feeling: and that when we have two feelings, the feeling of their likeness or unlikeness is inextricably interwoven with the fact of having the feelings. One of the conditions, under which we have feelings, is that they are like and unlike: and in the case of simple feelings, we cannot separate the likeness or unlikeness from the feelings themselves. It is by no means certain, however, that when we have two feelings in immediate succession, the feeling of their likeness is not a third feeling which follows instead of being involved in the two. This question is expressly left open by Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his “Principles of Psychology;” and I am not aware that any philosopher has conclusively resolved it. We do not get rid of any difficulty by calling the feeling of likeness the same thing with the two feelings that are alike: we have equally to postulate likeness and unlikeness as primitive facts—as an inherent distinction among our sensations; and whichever form of phraseology we employ makes no difference in the ulterior developments of psychology. It is of no practical consequence whether we say that a phenomenon is resolved into sensations and ideas, or into sensations, ideas, and their resemblances, since under the one expression as under the other the resemblance must be recognised as an indispensable element in the compound.
When we pass from resemblance between simple sensations and ideas, to resemblance between complex wholes, the process, though not essentially different, is more complicated, for it involves a comparison of part with part, element with element, and therefore a previous discrimination of the elements. When we judge that an external object, compounded of a number of attributes, is like another external object; since they are not, usually, alike in all their attributes, we have to take the two objects into simultaneous consideration in respect to each of their various attributes one after another: their colour, to observe whether that is similar; their size, whether that is similar; their figure, their weight, and so on. It comes at last to a perception of likeness or unlikeness between simple sensations: but we reduce it to this by attending separately to one of the simple sensations forming the one cluster, and to one of those forming the other cluster, and if possible adjusting our organs of sense so as to have these two sensations in immediate juxtaposition: as when we put two objects, of which we wish to compare the colour, side by side, so that our sense of sight may pass directly from one of the two sensations of colour to the other. This act of attention directed successively to single attributes, blunts our feeling of the other attributes of the objects, and enables us to feel the likeness of the single sensations almost as vividly as if we had nothing but these in our mind. Having felt this likeness, we say that the sensations are like, and that the two objects are like in respect of those sensations: and continuing the process we pronounce them to be either like or unlike in each of the other sensations which we receive from them.—Ed.
18 2. The only other relative terms applicable to simple sensations and ideas, are those which denote them as Antecedent and Consequent.
19 I have sensation red, sensation green. Why I mark them red, and green, or as “different,” has already been seen. What happens in marking them 20 as “antecedent” and “consequent” comes next to be considered.
A sensation, the moment it ceases, is gone for ever. When I have two sensations, therefore, A, and B, one first, the other following, sensation A is gone, before sensation B exists. But though sensation A is gone, its idea is not gone. Its idea, called up by association, exists along with sensation B, or the idea of sensation B. My knowing that the idea of sensation A is the idea of sensation A, is my having the idea. Having it, and knowing it, are not two things, but one and the same thing. Having the idea of sensation A, that is, having the idea of the immediate antecedent of sensation B, seems, also, to be the same thing with knowing it as the idea of that antecedent. Having sensation A, and after it sensation B, is mere sensation; and having the idea of sensation A, the immediate antecedent, called up by sensation B, the immediate consequent, is knowing it for that antecedent. The links of the train are three; 1, sensation A; 2, sensation B; 3, the idea of sensation A, in a certain order with B, called up by sensation B; and after this, NAMING.
The case appears mysterious, solely, from the want of words to express it clearly; and our confirmed habit of inattention to the process. Suppose, that 21 instead of two sensations, A and B, we have three, A, B, and C, in immediate succession. I recognise A, as the antecedent of B; B, as the antecedent of C. What is the process? The idea of sensation A, is associated with sensation B; and the idea of sensation B, is associated with sensation C. But sensation C, is not associated with the idea of sensation B solely, it is associated also with the idea of sensation A. It is associated, however, differently with the one and the other. It is associated with B immediately; it is associated with A, only through the medium of B; it calls up the idea of B, by its own associating power, and the idea of B, calls up the idea of A. This second state of consciousness is different from the first. The first is that in consequence of which B receives the name “Antecedent,” and C the name “Consequent.” When two sensations in a train are such, that, if one exists, it has the idea of the other along with it, by its immediate exciting power, and not through any intermediate idea; the sensation, the idea of which is thus excited, is called the antecedent, the sensation which thus excites that idea, is called the consequent.
It is evident that the terms, “antecedent,” and “consequent,” are not applied in consequence of sensation merely, but in consequence of sensation joined with ideas. The antecedent sensation, which is past, must be revived by the consequent sensation, which is present. It is the peculiarity of this revival which procures it the name. If revived by any other sensation, it would not have that name.
The Clock strikes three. My feelings are, three sensations of hearing, in succession. How do I know 22 them to be three successive sensations? The process in this instance does not seem to be very difficult to trace. The clock strikes one; this is pure sensation. It strikes two; this is a sensation, joined with the idea of the preceding sensation, and the idea of the feeling (also sensation), called change of sensation, or passage from one sensation to another. After two, the clock strikes three; there is, here, sensation, and a double association; the third stroke is sensation; that is associated immediately with the idea of the second, and through the idea of the second, with the idea of the first. It is observable, that these successive associations soon cease to afford distinct ideas; they hardly do so beyond the second stage. When the clock strikes, we may have distinct ideas of the strokes, as far as three, hardly farther; we must then have recourse to NAMING, and call the strokes, four, five, six, and so on: otherwise we should be wholly unable to tell how often the clock had struck.
In the preceding pairs of relative terms, we have found only one name for each pair. Thus, when we say of A and B, that A is similar to B, we say also, that B is similar to A. We have now an instance of a pair of relative terms, consisting not of the same, but of different names. If we call A antecedent, we call B consequent. The first class were called by the ancient logicians, synonymous, the second heteronymous; we may call them more intelligibly, single-worded, and double-worded, relatives.7
7 The next relation which the author examines is that of succession, or Antecedent and Consequent. And here again we have one of the universal conditions to which all our feelings or states of consciousness are subject. Whenever we have more feelings than one, we must have them either simultaneously or in succession; and when we are conscious of having them in succession, we cannot in any way separate or isolate the succession from the feelings themselves. The author attempts to carry the analysis somewhat farther. He says that when we have two sensations in the order of antecedent and consequent, the consequent calls up the idea of the antecedent; and that this fact, that a sensation calls up the idea of another sensation directly, and not through an intermediate idea, constitutes that other sensation the antecedent of the sensation which reminds us of it—is not a consequence of the one sensation’s having preceded the other, but is literally all we mean by the one sensation’s having preceded the other. There seem to be grave objections to this doctrine. In the first place, there is no law of association by which a consequent calls up the idea of its antecedent. The law of successive association is that the antecedent calls up the idea of the consequent, but not conversely; as is seen in the difficulty of repeating backwards even a form of words with which we are very familiar. We get round from the consequent to the antecedent by an indirect process, through the medium of other ideas; or by going back, at each step, to the beginning of the train, and repeating it downwards until we reach that particular link. When a consequent directly recalls its antecedent, it is by synchronous association, when the antecedent happens to have been so prolonged as to coexist with, instead of merely preceding, the consequent.
The next difficulty is, that although the direct recalling of the idea of a past sensation by a present, without any intermediate link, does not take place from consequent to antecedent, it does take place from like to like: a sensation recalls the idea of a past sensation resembling itself, without the intervention of any other idea. The author, however, says, that “when two sensations in a train are such that if one exists, it has the idea of the other along with it by its immediate exciting power, and not through any intermediate idea; the sensation, the idea of which is thus excited, is called the antecedent, the sensation which thus excites that idea is called the consequent.” If this therefore were correct, we should give the names of antecedent and consequent not to the sensations which really are so, but to those which recall one another by resemblance.
Thirdly and lastly, to explain antecedence, i.e. the succession between two feelings, by saying that one of the two calls up the idea of the other, that is to say, is followed by it, is to explain succession by succession, and antecedence by antecedence. Every explanation of anything by states of our consciousness, includes as part of the explanation a succession between those states; and it is useless attempting to analyse that which comes out as an element in every analysis we are able to make. Antecedence and consequence, as well as likeness and unlikeness, must be postulated as universal conditions of Nature, inherent in all our feelings whether of external or of internal consciousness.—Ed.
23 II. Having shewn what takes place in naming simple SENSATIONS, and simple IDEAS, in pairs, both as 24 such and such, and as antecedent and consequent, we come to the second case of relative terms, that of naming the clusters, called EXTERNAL OBJECTS, in pairs. The principal occasions of doing so we have said are four.
1. When we speak of them, as they exist in the synchronous order, that is, the order in space, we use such relative terms as the following: high, low; east, west; right, left; hind, fore; and so on.
It is necessary to carry along with us a correct idea of what is meant by synchronous order, that is, the order of simultaneous, in contradistinction to that of successive, existence. The synchronous order is much more complex than the successive. The successive 25 order is all, as it were, in one direction. The synchronous is in every possible direction. The following seems to be the best mode of conceiving it.
Take a single particle of matter as a centre. Other particles may be aggregated to it, in the line of every possible radius; and as the radii diverge, and other lines, tending to the centre, may be continually interposed, to any number, particles may be aggregated in those numberless directions. They may also be aggregated in those directions to a less or a greater extent. And they may be aggregated to an equal extent in every direction; or to a greater extent in some of the directions, a less extent in others. In the first case of aggregation they compose a globe; in the last, any other shape.
Every one of the particles in this aggregate, has a certain order; first with respect to the centre particle; next with respect to every other particle. This order is also called, the Position of the particle. In such an aggregate, therefore, the positions are innumerable. It is thence observable, that position is an exceedingly complex idea; for the position of each of those particles is its order with respect to every one of the other innumerable particles; it includes, therefore, innumerable ingredients. Hence it is not wonderful that, while viewed in the lump, it should seem obscure and mysterious.
Of positions, thus numberless, it is a small portion, only that have names. Bulk is a name for an aggregate of particles, greater, or less. Figure is only a modification, or case, of bulk; it is more or fewer particles in such and such directions.
These things being explained, it now remains to 26 shew, of what copies of sensations, peculiarly combined, the complex ideas in question are composed.
The simplest case of position, or synchronous order, is that of two or more particles in one direction. Let us take the particle, conceived as the centre particle, in a preceding supposition, and let us aggregate to it a number of particles, all in the direction of a single radius, one by one. We have first the centre particle, and one other, in juxta-position. This is the simplest case of synchronous order, and this is the simplest of all positions. Let us next aggregate a second particle; we have now the centre particle, and two more. The position of the first of the aggregated particles with respect to the centre particle is contact, or juxta-position; that of the second is not juxta-position, but position at the distance of a particle; the next which is aggregated, is at the distance of two; the next of three particles, and so on, to any extent.
Particles thus aggregated, all in the direction of a single radius from the first, constitute a line of less or greater length, according to the number of aggregated particles.
Line is a word of great importance; because it is by that, chiefly, we express ourselves concerning synchronous order; or frame names for positions. Now it happens, that Line has a duplicity of meaning, most unfortunate, because it has confounded two meanings, which it is of the highest importance to preserve distinct.
We have already remarked the distinction between concrete, and abstract, terms; and explained wherein the difference of their signification consists. We have 27 also observed, that though in very many cases, the concrete term, and the abstract term, are different words, as good and goodness, true and truth, there are many others in which the concrete and abstract terms are the same; and this is the case, unhappily, with the word Truth itself, which is used in the concrete sense, as well as the abstract. Thus we call a proposition, a Truth; in which phrase, the word Truth, means “True Proposition;” and in this sense we talk of eternal truths, meaning, Propositions, always true. “Property,” is another word, which is sometimes concrete, sometimes abstract. Thus, a man calls his horse, his field, his house, his property. In such phrases the word is concrete. He also says, he has a property in such and such things. In these phrases, it is abstract.
Of this ambiguity, the word Line is an instance. It is applied as well to what we call a physical line, as to what we call a mathematical line. In the first case, it is a concrete, or connotative term; in the second case, it is an abstract or non-connotative term. Let us then conceive clearly the two meanings. The purest idea of a physical line, is that which we have already formed; the aggregate of particle after particle, in the direction of a radius. When this aggregate of particles in this order is called a line, the word, line, is connotative; it marks or notes the direction, but it also marks or connotes the particles; it means the particles and the direction both; it is, in short, the concrete term. When it is used as the abstract term, the connotation is left out. It marks the direction without marking the particles.
It is here necessary to call to mind, that abstract 28 terms derive their meaning wholly from their concretes; and that by themselves they have absolutely no meaning at all. I know a green tree, a sweet apple, a hard stone, but greenness without something green, hardness without something hard, are just nothing at all.
The same, in its abstract sense, is the case with line, though we have not words by which we can convey the conception with equal clearness. If we had an abstract term, separate from the concrete, the troublesome association in question would have been less indissoluble, and less deceptive. If we had such a word as Lineness, or Linth, for example, we should have much more easily seen, that our idea is the idea of the physical line; and that linth without a line, as breadth without something broad, length without something long, are just nothing at all.8
8 This conception of a geometrical line, as the abstract, of which a physical line is the corresponding concrete, is scarcely satisfactory. An abstract name is the name of an attribute, or property, of the things of which the concrete name is predicated. It is, no doubt, the name of some part, some one or more, of the sensations composing the concrete group, but not of those sensations simply and in themselves; it is the name of those sensations regarded as belonging to some group. Whiteness, the abstract name, is the name of the colour white, considered as the colour of some physical object. Now I do not see that a geometrical line is conceived as an attribute of a physical object. The attribute of objects which comes nearest to the signification of a geometrical line, is their length: but length does not need any name but its own; and the author does not seem to mean that a geometrical line is the same thing as length. He seems to have fallen into the mistake of confounding an abstract with an ideal. The line which is meant in all the theorems of geometry I take to be as truly concrete as a physical line; it denotes an object, but one purely imaginary; a supposititious object, agreeing in all else with a physical line, but differing from it in having no breadth. The properties of this imaginary line of course agree with those of a physical line, except so far as these depend on, or are affected by, breadth. The lines, surfaces, and figures contemplated by geometry are abstract, only in the improper sense of the term, in which it is applied to whatever results from the mental process called Abstraction. They ought to be called ideal. They are physical lines, surfaces, and figures, idealized, that is, supposed hypothetically to be perfectly what they are only imperfectly, and not to be at all what they are in a very slight, and for most purposes wholly unimportant, degree.—Ed.
29 What are, then, the sensations, the ideas of which, in close association, we mark by the word line?
Though it appears to all men that they see position, length, breadth, distance, figure; it is nevertheless true, that what appear, in this manner, to be sensations of the eye, are Ideas, called up by association. This is an important phenomenon, which throws much light upon the darker involutions of human thought.
The sensations, whence are generated our ideas of synchronous order, are from two sources; they are partly the sensations of touch, and partly those of which we have spoken under the name of muscular sensations, the feelings involved in muscular action.9
9 In attaining the ideas of synchronous order, which is another name for Space, or the Extended World, sight is a leading instrumentality. It is by sight more than by any other sense that we get somewhat beyond the strict limits of the law of the successiveness of all our perceptions. Although we can distinctly see only a limited spot at one instant, we can couple with this a vague perception of an adjoining superficies. This is an important sign of co-existence, as contrasted with succession, and enters with various other signs into the very complex notion of the author’s synchronous order, otherwise called the Simultaneous or Co-existing in Space.—B.
30 A line, we have said, is an order of particles, contiguous one to another, in the direction of a radius from one particle. Let us begin from this one particle, and trace our sensations. One particle may be an object of touch; it may be felt, as we call it, and nothing more; it may, at the same time, give the sensation of resistance, which we have already described as a feeling seated in the muscles, just as sound is a feeling in the ear. Resistance, is force applied to force. What we feel, is the act of the muscle. Without that, no resistance. This state of consciousness is, in reality, what we mark by the name. It is, at the same time, a state of consciousness not a little obscure; because we habitually overlook many of the sensations of which it is composed; because it is, in itself, very complex; and because it is entangled with a number of extraneous associations.
We have already remarked the habit we acquire of not attending to the sensations which are seated in the muscles, of attending only to the occasions of them, and the effects of them; that is, their antecedents, and consequents; overlooking the intermediate sensations. In marking, therefore, or assigning our names, it seems to be rather the occasions and effects, the antecedents and consequents, than the sensations themselves, which are named. The word resistance is thus the name of a very complex 31 idea.10 It is the name; first, of the feelings which we have when we say we feel resistance; secondly, of the occasions, or antecedents, of those feelings; and, thirdly, of their consequents. The feelings intermediate between the antecedents and consequents, are themselves complex. There are two kinds of sensations included in them; the sensation of touch, and the muscular sensations; and there is something more. When we move a muscle, we Will to move it. This state of consciousness, the Will to move it, is part of the feeling of the motion. What that state of consciousness, called the Will, is, we have not yet explained. At present we speak of it merely as an element in the compound. Of what elements it is itself compounded we shall see hereafter. In the idea of resistance, then, there is the will to move the muscles, the sensations in the muscles, the occasion or antecedent of those feelings, and the effects or consequents of them. And there is the common complexity attending all generical terms, that of their including all possible varieties.
10 Still, when we apply an analysis to the complex facts indicated by the name, we come to a simple as well as ultimate experience, which is correctly signified by the name Resistance. The feeling of muscular energy expended is in all likelihood an absolutely elementary feeling of the mind; and the form of this feeling that is least complicated or mixed up with other sensibilities is what the word Resistance most usually expresses, namely, the dead strain, that is energy without leading to movement, or causing movement in such a slight degree as not to depart from the essential peculiarity of expended force.—B.
These things being explained, the learner will now be able to trace, without error, the formation of one of the most important of all our ideas, that of 32 resistance, or pressure. We touch one thing, butter, for instance; it yields to the finger, after a slight pressure; that is, a certain feeling of ours. The will to move the muscles, and the sensations in the muscles, are both included in that feeling; but, for shortness, we shall speak of them, through the present exposition, under one name, as the feelings or sensations in the muscles. As we call the butter yellow, on account of a feeling of sight; odorous, on account of a feeling of smell; sapid, on account of a feeling of taste; so we call it soft, on account of a feeling in our muscles. We touch a stone, as we touched the butter, and it yields not, after the strongest pressure we can apply. As we called the butter soft, on account of one muscular feeling, we call the stone hard, on account of another. The varieties of these feelings are innumerable. Only a small portion of them have received names. The feeling upon pressure of butter, is one thing; of honey, another; of water, another; of air, another; of flesh, one thing; of bone, another. We mark them as we can, by the terms soft, more soft, less soft; hard, more hard, less hard, and so on. We have great occasion, however, for a word which shall include all these different words. As we have “coloured” to include all the names of sensations of sight; “touch” all the names of sensations of touch, and so on; we invent the word “resisting,” which includes all the words, soft, hard, and so on, by which any of the sensations of pressure are denoted.
Such, then, are the feelings which we are capable of receiving from the particle with which we may suppose a line of particles to commence. These feelings, in passing along the line, we should receive in 33 succession from each, if the tactual sense were sufficiently fine to distinguish particles in contact from one another. It has not, however, this perfection. Even sight cannot distinguish minute intervals. If a red-hot coal is whirled rapidly round, though the coal is present at only one part of the circle at each instant, the whole is one continuous red. If the seven prismatic colours are made to pass rapidly in order before the eye, they appear not distinct colours, but one uniform white. In like manner, in passing from one to another, in a line of particles, there is no feeling of interval; there is the feeling we call continuity; that is, absence of interval.
The sensations, then, the ideas of which combined compose the idea which we mark by the word line, may thus be traced. The tactual feeling, and the feeling of resistance, derivable from every particle, attend the finger in every part of its progress along the line. What is there besides? To produce the progress of the finger, there is muscular action; that is to say, there are the feelings combined in muscular action. That we may exclude extraneous ideas as much as possible, let us suppose, that, when a person first makes himself acquainted with a line, he has the sense of touch, and the muscular sensations, without any other sense. He has one state of feeling, when the finger, which touches the line, is still; another, when it moves. He has also one state of feeling from one degree of motion, another from another. If he has one state of feeling from the finger carried along, as far as it can extend, he has another feeling when it is only carried half as far, and so on.
It is extremely difficult to speak of these feelings 34 precisely, or to draw by language those who are not accustomed to the minute analysis of their thoughts, to conceive them distinctly; because they are among the feelings, as we have before remarked, which we have acquired the habit of not attending to, or rather, have lost the power of attending to.
It is certain, however, that by sensation alone we become acquainted with lines; that in every different contraction of the muscles there is a difference of sensation; and that of the tactual feeling, and the feelings of the contracted muscles, all the feelings which constitute our knowledge of a line are composed.
As, after certain repetitions of a particular sensation of sight, a particular sensation of smell, a particular sensation of sight, and so on, received in a certain order, I give to the combined ideas of them, the name rose, the name apple, the name fire, and the like; in the same manner, after certain repetitions of particular tactual sensations, and particular muscular sensations, received in a certain order, I give to the combined ideas of them, the name Line. But when I have got my idea of a line, I have also got my idea of extension. For what is extension, but lines in every direction? physical lines, if real, tactual extension; mathematical lines, if mathematical, that is, abstract, extension.
It would be tedious to pursue the analysis of extension farther. And I trust it is not necessary; because the application of the same method to the remaining cases, appears completely obvious. Take plane surface for example. It is composed of all the lines which can be drawn in a particular plane; the idea of it, therefore, is derived from the tactual feeling, and the feeling of resistance, combined with the 35 muscular feelings involved in the motion of the finger in every direction which it can receive on a plane.
Let us now take some of the words which, along with the synchronous order, connote objects in pairs. The names of this sort are not very numerous. High, and low, right, and left, hind, and fore, are examples. These, it is obvious, are names of the principal directions from the human body as a centre. The order of objects, the most frequently interesting to human beings, is, of course, their order with respect to their own bodies. What is over the head, gets the name of high; what is below the feet, gets the name of low; and so on. Of the pairs which are connoted by those words, the human body is always one. The words, right, left, hind, fore, when they denote the object so called, always connote the body in respect to which they are right, left, hind, fore. We have already noticed the cases in which the objects, thus named in pairs, have each a separate name, as father, son; also those in which both have the same name, as sister, brother. We have here another case, which deserves also to be particularly marked, that in which only one of them has a name. The human body, which is always one of the objects named, when we call things right, left, hind, fore, and so on, has no corresponding relative name. The reason is sufficiently obvious; this, being always one of the pair, cannot, the other being named, be misunderstood.
For the complete understanding of these words, it does not appear that any thing remains to be explained. If one line, proceeding from a central particle, be understood, every line, which can proceed from it, is also understood. If that central point be a part 36 of the human body, it is plain that as the hand, passing along a line in a certain direction from that centre, has certain muscular actions, passing along in another direction, it has muscular actions somewhat different. When we say muscular actions somewhat different, we say muscular feelings somewhat different. Difference of feeling, when important, needs difference of naming.
A particular case of association is here to be remarked; and it is one which it is important for the learner to fix steadfastly in his memory.
We never perceive, what we call an object, except in the synchronous order. Whatever other sensations we receive, the sensations of the synchronous order, are always received along with them. When we perceive a chair, a tree, a man, a house, they are always situated so and so, with respect to other objects. As the sensations of positions are thus always received with the other sensations of an object, the idea of Position is so closely associated with the idea of the object, that it is wholly impossible for us to have the one idea without the other. It is one of the most remarkable cases of indissoluble association; and is that feeling which men describe, when they say that the idea of space forces itself upon their understandings, and is necessary.11
11 Under the head, as before, of Relative Terms, we find here an analysis of the important and intricate complex ideas of Extension and Position. It will be convenient to defer any remarks on this analysis, until it can be considered in conjunction with the author’s exposition of the closely allied subjects of Motion and Space.—Ed.
37 2. We come now to the case of naming OBJECTS in pairs, on account of the Successive Order.
We have had occasion to observe that there is nothing in which human beings are so deeply interested, as the Successive Order of objects. It is the successive order upon which all their happiness and misery depends; and the synchronous order is interesting to them, chiefly on account of its connection with the successive.
When we speak of objects, it is necessary to remember, that it is sensations, not ideas, to which we are then directing our attention. All our sensations, we say, are derived from objects; in other words, object is the name we give to the antecedents of our sensations. And, reciprocally, all our knowledge of objects is the sensations themselves. We have the sensations, and that is all. A knowledge, therefore, of the successive order of objects, is a knowledge of the successive order of our sensations; of all the pleasures, and all the pains, and all the feelings intermediate between pleasure and pain, of which the body is susceptible.
Of successions, that is, the order of objects as antecedent and consequent, some are constant, some not constant. Thus, a stone dropped in the air always falls to the ground. This is a case of constancy of sequence. Heavy clouds drop rain, but not always. This is a case of casual sequence.12 Human life is 38 deeply interested in ascertaining the constant sequences of all the objects from which human sensations are derived. The great business of philosophy is to find them out; and to record them, in the form most convenient for acquiring the knowledge of them, and for applying it.
12 This is surely an improper use of the word Casual. Sequences cannot be exhaustively divided into invariable and casual, or (as by the author a few pages further on) into constant and fortuitous. Heavy clouds, though they do not always drop rain, are not connected with it by mere accident, as the passing of a waggon might be. They are connected with it through causation: they are one of the conditions on which, when united, rain is invariably consequent, though it is not invariably consequent on that single condition. This distinction is essential to any system of Inductive Logic, in which it recurs at every step.—Ed.
In the successions of objects, it very often happens, that what appear to us to be the immediate antecedent and consequent, are not immediately successive, but are separated by several intermediate successions. Thus, the falling of a spark on gunpowder, and the explosion of the gunpowder, appear antecedent and consequent; but several successions in reality intervene; various decompositions, and compositions, in which, indeed, all the sequences cannot as yet be traced. Most of the successions, which we are called upon to notice and to name, are in the same situation. We fix upon two conspicuous points in a chain of successions, and the intermediate ones are either overlooked, or unknown.
Thus, we name Doctor and Patient, the two extremities of a pretty long succession of objects. The Doctor is not the immediate antecedent of any change in the patient. He is the immediate antecedent of a certain conception, of which the consequent is, writing a prescription; the consequent of this, is the sending 39 it to the apothecary; the consequent of that, is the apothecary’s reading it, and so on; the whole composing a multitudinous train. Doctor and Patient, therefore, are not only two paired names of two paired objects, but names of all the successions between the one and the other. Doctor and Patient, therefore, properly speaking, are to be considered one name, though made up of two parts. Taken together, they are the name of the complex idea of a considerable train of sequences, of which a particular man is one extremity, a particular man another; just as navigation is the single-worded name of the complex idea of a very long train, of which the extremities are not particularly marked. If you say, navigation from the Thames to the Ganges, you have a many-worded name, by which the extremities of this long train are particularly marked.
The relative terms, Father and Son, are obviously included in this explanation. They are the two extremities of a train of great length and intricacy, very imperfectly understood. They also, both together, compose, as may easily be seen, but one name. Father is a word which connotes Son, and whether Son is expressed or not, the meaning of it is implied. In like manner Son connotes Father; and, stripped of that connotation, is without a meaning. Taken together, therefore, they are one name, the name of the complex idea of that train of which father is the one extremity, son the other.13
13 It seems hardly a proper expression to say that Physician and Patient, or that Father and Son, are one name made up of two parts. When one of the parts is a name of one person and the other part is the name of another, it is difficult to see how the two together can be but one name. Father and Son are two names, denoting different persons: but what the author had it in his mind to say, was that they connote the same series of facts, which series, as the two persons are both indispensable parts of it, gives names to them both, and is made the foundation or fundamentum of an attribute ascribed to each.
With the exception of this questionable use of language, which the author had recourse to because he had not left himself the precise word Connote, to express what there is of real identity in the signification of the two names; the analysis which follows of the various complicated cases of relation seems philosophically unexceptionable. The complexity of a relation consists in the complex composition of the series of facts or phenomena which the names connote, and which is the fundamentum relationis. The names signify that the person or thing, of which they are predicated, forms part of a group or succession of phenomena along with the other person or thing which is its correlate: and the special nature of that group or series, which may be of extreme complexity, constitutes the speciality of the relation predicated.—Ed.
40 Brother and Brother are a pair of relative terms marking a still more complex idea. Two brothers are two sons of the same Father; taken together, they are, therefore, marks of all that Son, taken twice, is capable of marking. Son, as we have just seen, always implies Father; and, taken together, they are the name of a train. The relatives, therefore, brother and brother, are the compound name; two brothers, are the name of the train marked by the term, Father and Son, taken twice, the prior extremity of the train being the same in both cases, the latter different.
The above terms. Father and Son, Brother and 41 Brother, are imposed on account of sequences which are passed. I do not at this moment recollect any relative terms imposed on account of sequences purely future. The terms, Buyer and Seller, are sometimes, indeed, used in a sense wholly future; when they mean persons having something to buy and something to sell: but they are also used in a sense wholly passed, when they signify persons who have effected purchase and sale. We have, however, many relative terms on account of trains which are partly passed and partly future. Thus, Lender and Borrower, are imposed partly on account of the passed train included in the contract of lending and borrowing; partly on account of the future train implied in the repayment of the money. The words Debtor and Creditor are names of the same train, partly passed and partly future.
The relative terms, Husband and Wife, are of the same class; the name of a train partly passed, to wit, that implied in entering into the nuptial contract; and partly future, to wit, all the events expected to flow out of that contract. Master and Servant are imposed, on account of a train partly passed and partly future; the train of entering into the compact of master and servant, and the train of acts which flow out of it. King and Subject are the name of a train similarly divided; first, the train which led to the will of obeying on the part of the people, the will of commanding on the part of the king; secondly, the trains which grow out of these wills.
Owner and Property are relative terms, or terms which connote one another. They also are imposed on account of a train partly passed and partly future. The part which is passed is the train implied in the 42 circumstances of the acquisition, whether inheritance, gift, labour, or purchase. The part which is future is the train implied in the use which the owner may make of the property.
Of the terms which denote objects in successive pairs, several are very general. Thus we have antecedent and consequent, which are applicable to any parts of any train. Prior and Posterior, are nearly of the same import. First and Last, are applicable to the two extremities of any train. Second, third, fourth, and so on, are applicable to the contiguous parts of any train.
We have remarked, above, that successions of objects are to be distinguished into two remarkable kinds; that of the successions which are fortuitous, and that of the successions which are constant. Names to mark the antecedent and consequent in all constant successions, which are things of such importance to us, were found of course indispensable. Cause and Effect, are the names we employ. In all constant successions. Cause is the name of the antecedent. Effect the name of the consequent. And, beside this, it has been proved by philosophers,1* that these names denote absolutely nothing.
1* Chiefly by Dr. Brown, of Edinburgh, in a work entitled “Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect;” one of the most valuable contributions to science for which we are indebted to the last generation.—(Author’s Note.)
It is highly necessary to be apprized, that each of the two names. Cause and Effect, has a double meaning. They are used, sometimes in the concrete sense, sometimes in the abstract. By this ambiguity, 43 ideas are confounded, which it is of the greatest importance to preserve distinct. When we say, the sun is the Cause of light, cause is concrete; the meaning is, that the sun always causes light. When we say that ice is the Effect of cold air, effect is concrete; the meaning is, that ice is effected by cold air. “Cause,” in these cases, is merely a short name for “causing object,” “Effect,” a short name for “caused object.” In abstract discourse, on the other hand, Cause and Effect are often used in the abstract sense, in which cases Cause means the same thing as would be meant by causingness; Effect, the same as would be meant by causedness. They are merely the connotative or concrete terms, with the connotation dropped.
As the abstract terms have no meaning, except as they refer to the concrete, it is in the concrete sense I shall always use the words Cause and Effect, unless when I give notice to the contrary.
Other terms, pairing the parts of a train, take parts more or less distant; first and last, take the most distant; father and son, take parts at a considerable distance; cause and effect, on the other hand, mean always the proximate parts. It does not, indeed, happen, that we always apply them to the proximate parts; because the intermediate sequences are often unknown, at other times overlooked. They are always, however, applied to the parts regarded as proximate. For we do not, strictly speaking, say, that any thing is the cause of a thing, when it is only the cause of another thing, which is the cause of that thing; still less, when there is a series of causes and effects, before you arrive at that which you have marked as the effect, because the ultimate one. In 44 all the inquiries of philosophers into causes, it is the antecedent and consequent, really proximate, which is the object of their pursuit.
We have observed, in the case of the relative terms, applied to objects as successive, that the words, properly speaking, form but one name,—that of the complex idea of a train of less or greater length: thus, Doctor and Patient is a name; Father and Son is a name; each denoting a train of which two individuals are the principal parts. In like manner, the relative terms Cause and Effect, taken together, are but one name, the name of a short train, that of one antecedent and one consequent, regarded as proximate, and constant.
3. We have now shewn, in what manner the principal Relative Terms are applied, when we have to speak of objects as having order in Space, and when we have to speak of them as having order in Time. We proceed to shew in what manner they are applied, when we have to speak of objects as differing in Quantity, or differing in Quality; and first, as differing in Quantity.
We apply the word Quantity, in a very general manner; to things, which have the greatest diversity. Thus, we use the word quantity, when we speak of extension; we use the word quantity, when we speak of weight; we use it, when we speak of motion; we use it, when we speak of heat; we use it, in short, on almost every occasion, on which we can use the word degree. Of course, it represents not one idea, but many ideas, some of which have the greatest diversity.
The relative terms, which we co-apply with 45 quantity, are equal, unequal, or some particular case included under these more general terms; as, more heavy, less heavy; more strong, less strong; whole, part; and so on.
When quantity is applied to extent, it may be extent either in one, or more, or every direction; it may mean either quantity in line, quantity in surface, or quantity in bulk. Accordingly, we can say, equal, or unequal, lines; equal, or unequal, surfaces; equal, or unequal, bulks.
Line is the simplest case; the explanation of it will, therefore, facilitate the rest. We have already traced the sensations, which constitute our knowledge of a line. We have seen that they are certain sensations of touch, combined with the muscular sensations involved in extending the arm.
As the sensations, involved in extending the arm so far, are not the same with those which are involved in extending it farther; and as the having different sensations, and distinguishing them, are not two things, but one and the same thing;—as often as I have those two cases of sensation, I distinguish them from one another; and, distinguishing them from one another, I require names to mark them. The first I mark, by the word, short; the other, by the word, long. As I call a line long, from extending my arm so far; that is, from the sensations involved in extending it; I call it longer from extending it farther. After experience of a number of lines, there are some which I call long, long, long, one after another, to any amount; others which I call longer, longer, longer; others which I call short, short, short; and so on.
When we have perceived the sensations, on account 46 of which we call lines long, longer, short, shorter, we can be at no loss for the knowledge of those, on account of which we call them equal, and unequal. It is to be observed, that in applying the words long, longer, short, shorter, minute differences are not named. They cannot be named. The names would be too numerous. A general mark, however, may be invented, to shew when there is even a minute difference, and when there is not. When there is not, we call the two lines equal; when there is, we call them unequal.
We shall presently see, when we come to trace the ideas, which the class of words, called numbers, are employed to mark, what distinction of sensation it is which is marked by the words, one, and two. In the mean time, it is easy to see, that the case of sensation, when we trace one line, with the hand, and then another, is different from the case of sensation when we trace one line only, or even the same line twice; and this diversity needs marks to distinguish it. It is true, that in tracing one line, and then another, and marking the distinction, there is something more than sensation, there is also memory. But to this ingredient in the compound, after the explanation which has already been given of memory, it is not, at present, necessary particularly to advert.
When it is seen, what are the sensations which are marked by the terms longer and shorter, applied to a line, it will not be difficult to see what are the sensations, which are marked by the terms, part, and whole.
The terms, a part, and whole, imply division. Of course, the thing precedes the name. Men divided, before they named the act, or the consequences of the 47 act. In the act of division, or in the results of it, no mystery has ever been understood to reside. It is of importance to remark, that the word division, in its ordinary acceptation, includes, and thence confounds, things which very much need to be distinguished. It includes the will, which is the antecedent of the act; the act itself; and the results of the act. At present we may leave the will aside; it will be explained hereafter; and, as it is not the act, but the antecedent of the act, the consideration of it is not required, for the present purpose.
The act of dividing, like all the other acts of our body, consists in the contraction and relaxation of certain muscles. These are known to us, like every thing else, by the feelings. The act, as act, is the feelings; and only when confounded with its results, is it conceived to be any thing else. If it be said, that the contraction of the muscles of my arm, is something more in me than feelings, because I see the motion of my arm; it is to be observed, that this seeing, this sensation of sight, is not the act, but one of its results; the feelings of the act are the antecedent; this sensation of sight one of the consequents.
In the act of dividing a line, as in the act, already analysed, of tracing a line, there is a feeling of touch, and there is also a muscular feeling. There may be more or less of cohesion in the parts of the line; and thence, more or less of what we call muscular force, required to disunite them. Of course, what we call more or less of force, are only names for different states of feeling. The states of feeling which we mark by the term, force, being antecedent, all the rest 48 are consequents of this antecedent. The disunion of the parts of one line is attended with a certain muscular feeling; I call the feeling a small force. That of another line is attended with a muscular feeling somewhat different; I call it a greater force; and so on. This muscular feeling, however, has various accompaniments; which are closely associated with the idea of the act, and with its name. Thus there is the sight of the line, there is the sight of the hands in the act of disruption, and there is the sight of the line after it is divided. The term division, as we have mentioned before, includes all; the muscular feeling, the sight of the line before division, and the sight of it after. I need a pair of names for the line before division, and the line after. I call the one whole, the other parts. Like other relative terms, the one of these connotes the other; whole has no meaning, but when associated with parts; parts have no meaning, but when associated with whole. Taken together; that is, whole and parts, used as one name; they mark a complex idea, consisting of three principal parts; an undivided line, the act of division, and the consequent of that antecedent, the line after division.
In the preceding exposition, it is actual division, the actual making of parts, which has been spoken of. It is observable, however, that the same language, by which we name actual division, and actual parts, is applied to conceived division, and conceived parts. Thus we talk of the parts of a line, when it is not divided, nor meant to be divided. The exposition of this, however, is easy; and there is obscurity only when the double use of the terms confounds the two 49 cases, the division which is actual, with that which is conceived.
The division of the line may consist of one act, or of more acts than one. By the first act, it is divided into two parts; by the second into three; by the third into four, and so on. The parts of a line are so many lines. These may be equal, or unequal. But the sensations, on account of which we denominate lines equal, or unequal, have been already shewn; the equality, and inequality, therefore, of the parts of a line, need no further explanation.
When the learner conceives distinctly the sensations on account of which we apply the terms whole and parts to a line, he will not find it difficult to understand, on what account we apply them to all the modifications of extension; seeing that all these modifications are lines combined.
Thus, a plane surface is a number of straight lines, in contact, in the direction called a plane. It is of greater or less extent, according as these lines are longer or shorter from a central point; it is of one shape or another shape, according as the lines are of the same length, or of different lengths. When they are all of one length, the surface is called a circle. As they may be of different lengths in endless variety, the surface may have an endless variety of shapes, of which only a few have received names. The square is one of these names, the triangle another, the parallelogram another, and so on.
Bulk, which is the other great modification of extension, is lines from a central point in every direction. This bulk is greater or less, according as these lines are longer or shorter. The figure or shape of this 50 bulk is different, according as the lines are of the same or different lengths. If they are of the same length, the bulk is called round, or, in one word, a sphere; sphere meaning exactly round bulk. As the lines, when they differ in length, may differ in endless ways; figures, or the shapes of bulk, are also endless, as our senses abundantly testify. Of these but a small number have received names. In this number are the cube, the cylinder, the cone. We name some shapes by referring to known objects; thus we speak of the shape of an egg, the shape of a pear, and so on.
It seems that nothing, therefore, is now wanting, to shew in what manner the relative terms, expressive of Quantity, are applied to all the modifications of extension.
After what has been said, it will not be difficult to ascertain the sensations on account of which we apply the same relative terms to cases of Weight.
Weight is the name of a particular species of pressure; pressure towards the centre of the earth. Pressure, as we have already fully seen, is the name we apply, when we have certain sensations in the muscles, just as green is the name we apply when we have a certain sensation in the eye. As green is the name of the sensation in the eye, pressure is the name of the sensation in the muscles. Pressure upwards, is one thing; pressure downwards, is another; pressure of a body, when that body is urged by another body, is one thing; pressure of a body, when it is not urged by another body, is a different thing: pressure of a body in altering the position of its parts is one thing; pressure, when there is no alteration of the position of its parts, is another thing. Of this last sort is weight, 51 the pressure downwards, or towards the centre of the earth, of a body not urged by another body, and not altering the position of its parts.
In supporting in my hand a stone, I resist a certain pressure; in other words, have certain muscular feelings, on account of which I call the stone heavy. I support other stones, and in doing so have muscular feelings, in one case similar, in another dissimilar. In the case of similarity, I call two stones equal, meaning in weight; in the case of dissimilarity, unequal; and so I apply all the other relative terms by which quantity is expressed.
It seems unnecessary to carry this analysis into further detail. The words equal, unequal: greater, less; applied to Motion, to Heat, and other modifications of sensation, have a meaning, which in following the course so fully exemplified it cannot be difficult to ascertain.
It seems still necessary that I should say something of the word Quantus, from which the word Quantity is derived. Quantus is the correlate of Tantus. Tantus, Quantus, are relative terms, applicable to all the objects to which we apply the terms, Great, or Little; they are applicable, therefore, to all the modifications of extension, of weight, of heat; in short, to all modifications which we can mark as degrees.
Of two lines, we call the one tantus, the other quantus. The occasions on which we do so are, when the one is as long as the other. Tantus, and Quantus, then, in this case, mean the same thing as equal, equal. They will be found to have the same import as equal, equal, when applied also to surface, and bulk; and so in all other compatible cases.
52 What then, it may be asked, is the use of them? If it should appear that they were of no use, it would not be very surprising; considering by whom languages have been made; and that redundancy is frequent in them as well as defect. In the present case, however, a use is not wanting.
It is necessary to observe the artifice, to which we are obliged to have recourse, to name, and even to distinguish, the different modifications, not of kind but of degree, included under the word quantity. We are obliged to take some one object, with which we are familiar, and to distinguish other objects, as differing or agreeing with that object. Thus, we take some well-known line, the length of the foot, or the length of the arm, and distinguish and name all other lengths by that length; which can be divided or multiplied so as to correspond with them. In like manner, we take some well-known object as a standard weight, which we call, for example, a pound, and distinguish and name all other weights, as parts or multiples of that known weight.
Now it will be recognised, that, in applying the relative terms equal, equal, or in calling two objects equal, no one of them is marked as the standard. Both are taken on the same footing. The one is equal to the other; and the other is equal to that. But when we say that one thing is tantus, quantus another; or one so great, as the other is great; the first is referred to the last, the tantus to the quantus; the first is distinguished and named by the last. The quantus is the standard.
It is this which gives its peculiar meaning to the word Quantity, and has recommended it for that very 53 comprehensive and generical acceptation, in which it is now received.
Our word Quantity, is the Latin word Quantitas; and Quantitas is the abstract of the concrete Quantus. We have no English words, corresponding to Tantus, Quantus. We form an equivalent, by aid of the relative conjunctions; we say, So Great, As Great. But these concrete terms do not furnish abstracts; we do not say, As-greatness; in the first place, because it is an awkward expression; and in the next place, because the relative, “as,” is not steady in its application, since we use “as great” not for quantus only, but frequently also for tantus. As greatness, therefore, does not readily suggest the idea of the abstract of Quantus.
On what account, then, is it we give to any thing the name Quantus? As a standard by which to name another thing Tantus. The thing called Quantus, is the previously known thing, the ascertained amount, by which we can mark and define the other amount. Leaving out the connotation of Quantus, which is some one individual body, Quantitas merely denotes such and such an amount of body. Quantitas, if it was kept to its original meaning, would still connote Tantitas; just as paternity connotes filiality. But in the case of Quantity, even this connotation is dropped; it is used not as a relative abstract term, but an absolute abstract term; and is employed as a generical name for any portion of extension, any portion of weight, of heat, or any thing else, which can be measured by a part of itself.14
14 After analysing Position and Extension under the head of Relative Terms, the author now, under the same head, gives the analysis of Quantity and Quality. To what he says on the subject of Quantity it does not appear necessary to add anything. He seems to have correctly analysed the phenomenon down to a primitive element, beyond which we have no power to investigate. As Likeness and Unlikeness appeared to be properties of our simple feelings, which must be postulated as ultimate, and which are inseparable from the feelings themselves, so may this also be said of More and Less. As some of our feelings are like, some unlike, so there is a mode of likeness or unlikeness which we call Degree: some feelings otherwise like are unlike in degree, that is one is unlike another in intensity, or one is unlike another in duration; in either case one is distinguished as more, or greater, the other as less. And the fact of being more or less only means that we feel them as more or less. The author says in this case, as he had said in the other elementary cases of relation, that the more and the less being different sensations, to trace them and to distinguish their difference are not two things but one and the same thing. It matters not, since there the difference still is, unsusceptible of further analysis. The author’s apparent simplification amounts only to this, that differences of quantity, like all other differences of which we take cognizance, are differences merely in our feelings; they exist only as they are felt. But (as we have already said of resemblance, and of antecedence and consequence) they must be postulated as elements. The distinction of more and less is one of the ultimate conditions under which we have all our states of consciousness.—Ed.
54 4. After tracing the sensations and ideas, which are marked when we apply relative terms to objects, as agreeing or disagreeing in quantity; we have now to trace the sensations and ideas, which are marked, when we apply relative terms to objects, on account of their agreeing or disagreeing in quality.
First of all, the learner must take note of what he 55 means by Quality. We ascribe qualities to an object on account of our sensations. We call an object green, on account of the sensation green; hard, on account of the sensation hard; sounding, on account of the sensation sounding. The names of all qualities of objects, then, are names of sensations. Are they any thing else? Yes; they are the names of our sensations, with connotation of a supposed unknown cause of those sensations. As far, however, as our knowledge goes, they are names of sensations, and nothing else. The supposed cause is never known; the effects alone are known to us.
We ascribe qualities to objects, in two cases, which require to be distinguished: on account of the sensations which we have from them primarily; on account of those which we have from them secondarily. The first we call their sensible qualities; as green, hot, hard, sweet, scented, and so on: the second we more frequently call their powers; as the power of the loadstone to draw iron, the power of water to melt sugar. In this latter case, the sensations marked are not those which are derived from the loadstone, or from water; but those which are derived from the changes in the iron, and the sugar; of which changes, we call the loadstone, and the water, the cause. In the latter case, the train of antecedents and consequents is longer than it is in the former. When I see an object green; there is the object, the antecedent; and myself sentient of green, the consequent. When I see a loadstone draw iron, there is the following train; the loadstone, antecedent; iron drawn, first consequent; myself seeing it drawn, second consequent. When I see water melt sugar, there is the 56 antecedent water; sugar melting, first consequent; myself seeing it, second consequent. What I call the powers of an object, then, are its order in respect to certain of my sensations, the order of antecedence, not proximate, but more or less remote.
When I say that grass is green, I trace my sensation green, no farther than to the grass. When I say, the sugar is melting, I trace my sensations (for they are several) called sugar melting, first to the sugar, and then to the water. My word green, therefore, is the notation of a sensation, and connotation of an unknown cause; my name melting, is the notation of a compound of sensations, and connotation of two causes, an antecedent and a consequent: the first, an unknown cause in the sugar; the second, the cause of that unknown cause, namely, the water.
In speaking of the qualities of an object, it is necessary to take notice of an inaccuracy of language; which, not only, as Dr. Brown has well observed, lies at the bottom of many philosophical errors, but induces men to mistake the very business of the philosopher.
The term, “quality” or “qualities of an object,” seems to imply, that the qualities are one thing, the object another. And this, in some indistinct way, is, no doubt, the opinion of the great majority of mankind. Yet, the absurdity of it strikes the understanding, the moment it is mentioned. The qualities of an object are the whole of the object. What is there beside the qualities? In fact, they are convertible terms: the qualities are the object; and the object is the qualities. But, then, what are the qualities? Why, sensations, with the association of 57 the object as the cause. And what is the association of the object as the cause? Why, the association of other sensations as antecedent. What, for example, are the smell, and colour, and other qualities of the rose? Is not each of the names of these qualities, that of the smell, for example, a connotative name, not only noting the sensation, of which it is properly the name, but connoting all the sensations of colour, of consistence, of figure, of position; to which, all combined by association, so as to form one complex idea, we give the specific name, rose, the more general name, vegetable, and the still more general name, object? When the smell of a rose is perceived by me, or the idea suggested to me, immediately all the other ideas included under the term rose, are suggested along with it, and their indissoluble union presupposed. But this belief of the previous indissoluble union of each of those sensations with all the other sensations, is all which I really mean when I refer each sensation to the rose as its cause.
If the learner has fully apprehended the ideas here premised, it will be easy for him to trace to the bottom the relative terms, which we apply to objects on account of their agreeing or disagreeing in Quality.
We say, that objects agree or disagree, on account of one quality, or more than one quality, that is, on account of single sensations, or combined sensations.
Let us first observe the case of one quality. We say, that a blade of grass is like the leaf of an oak, meaning, that in the quality of colour both are green; we say that the leaf of the rose tree, is unlike the petal of the flower, meaning in colour. By these 58 words, we name the objects in pairs; first, the pair of leaves, to each of which, we give the name, like; secondly, the leaf and the petal, to each of which, we give the name, unlike. We name the first two objects, “like,” on account of the two sensations, green, and green, one of each object; we name the next two objects unlike, on account of the two sensations, green of the one, red of the other. What is done, or rather what is felt, when we give the same, or a different name, to each of two sensations, has been already so fully explained, that a bare suggestion of what has been premised, is here all that will be required.
We have two sensations. A, B. Having two sensations, and knowing them to be two sensations, that is, not one sensation, is having the sensations, and nothing more.
Why do I call one sequence of sensations, green, green; another sequence, green, red? Clearly on account of the sensations. No other explanation can be given of it, nor can be required. For the same reason for which I called the sensations of the first sequence individually, green, green, I call them both, like; and for the same reason for which I called those of the second sequence, not green, green, but green, red, I call them, unlike.
Let us next put the case of several sensations. We say, that one rose is like another. We have only to take the sensations combined under the name rose, one by one, to see that this, and the former, case, are in reality the same. The two roses are like in colour, like in smell, like in consistence, like in form, like in position. The likeness of the two roses, is a likeness 59 not in one sensation, but in several. But the likeness of two sensations of smell, is of the same nature as the likeness of the two sensations of sight. When I call the smell, therefore, of the two roses like, it is for the same reason as I call the colour of them like, that is, the sensations. When I call the shape and consistence, and position, like, it is for the same reason still; the tactual and muscular sensations, whence the ideas are derived to which these names are annexed. In this case, however, the reason is by no means so clearly seen, first, because the sensations are complex, and secondly, because they are of that class of sensations which we habitually overlook.
The Latin words, Talis, Qualis, are applied to objects in the same way, on one account, as Tantus, Quantus, on another; and the explanation we gave of Tantus, Quantus, may be applied mutatis mutandis, to the pair of relatives we have now named. Tantus, Quantus, are names applied to objects on account of dimension. Talis, Qualis, are names applied to objects on account of all other sensations. We apply Tantus, Quantus, to a pair of objects when they are equal; we apply Talis, Qualis, to a pair of objects, when they are like.
Talis, Qualis, however, express the likeness of two objects in a manner somewhat different from the other pair of nearly equivalent relatives, “Like,” and “Like.” When we call two objects Like, the one is placed on the same footing as the other. No one of them is taken as the standard. When we apply, Talis, Qualis, the case is different. One of the objects is then the standard. The object Qualis, is that to which the reference is made.
60 This being understood, the extensive meaning which came to be given to the word Quality, may be easily explained. Quality is the Latin Qualitas, and Qualitas is the abstract of Qualis. The meaning of the abstract is the same with that of the concrete, the connotation being dropped. When the word Qualis, is applied to an object, it notes something about it in particular, but connotes the whole object. The Qualitas of that object, is the something noted in particular, the connotation being dropped. As Qualis is applied to objects, sometimes on account of one thing belonging to them, sometimes on account of another, Qualitas comes in turn to be applied to every thing in them, requiring at any time a separate notation. Qualitas, when first formed from Qualis, has the force of a relative, and connotes the abstract of Talis; but in its frequent use, in marking every thing in objects, which requires separate notation, this connotation, also, comes to be dropped; and Quality is finally used as an absolute term, the generical name of every thing in objects, for which a separate notation is required.15
15 As in the case of Quantity, so in that of Quality, it is needless to add anything to the author’s very sufficient elucidation. I merely make the usual reserves with respect to the use of the word Connotation. The concrete names which predicate qualities (for of abstract relative names the author is not yet speaking) are said by him to be the names of our sensations; green, for instance, and red. But it is the abstract names alone which are this: the names greenness, and redness. And even the abstract names signify something more than only the sensations: they are names of the sensations considered as derived from an object which produces them. The concrete name is a name not of the sensation, but of the object, of which alone it is predicable: we talk of green objects, but not of green sensations. It however connotes the quality greenness, that is, it connotes that particular sensation as produced by, or proceeding from, the object; as forming one of the group of sensations which constitutes the object. This, however, is but a difference, though a very important one, in terminology. It is strictly true, that the real meaning of the word is the sensations; as, in all cases, the meaning of a connotative word resides in the connotation (the attributes signified by it), though it is the name of, or is predicable of, only the objects which it denotes.—Ed.
61 III. It was remarked at the beginning of this investigation of relative terms or names applied in pairs, that we name in pairs—1, single sensations or ideas; 2, the clusters we call objects; 3, the complex ideas we form arbitrarily for our own purposes. Having finished the consideration of the two former cases, we shall not find occasion to speak much at length upon the last.
The clusters, formed by arbitrary association, receive names in pairs, on two occasions; either,
1. When they consist of the same or different simple ideas; or,
2. When they succeed one another in a train.
1. The ideas which we put together arbitrarily are sometimes less, sometimes more, complex, for the most part, they are exceedingly complex.
Of the less complicated kinds, are such ideas as that of the unicorn, which is a horse with one straight horn growing from the middle of its forehead; the Cyclops, a gigantic man, with a single eye in the middle of his forehead; a mermaid, of which the upper part is a woman, the lower a fish; the Brobdignagian 62 and Lilliputian of Swift, which are men of greatly reduced, or greatly enlarged dimensions.
Of the more complicated kinds, are such ideas as those which are marked by the word Science, by the word Trade, by the word Law, by the word Religion, by the word Faith, by the words God and Devil, by the word Value, by the words Virtue, Honour, Vice, Beauty, Deformity, Space, Time, and so on.
Language has not many relative terms, applicable to ideas of this class. We speak of pairs of them as like or unlike, same or different, greater or less; and except when their order in time is to be noted, we hardly apply to them any other marks in pairs.
We say the Cyclops in Homer, and the Brobdignagian of Swift, are unlike. We do so precisely in the same way, as we say, the rose and the lily are unlike; and the explanation which we have given of that which is distinctively marked by those terms, when applied to objects, is precisely applicable here. In the case of objects, that which is named, is, clusters of ideas;16 in the present case, that which is named, is clusters of ideas. That one cluster has been formed in one way, another in another, makes no difference in annexing marks to the clusters when they are formed.
16 Say rather, in the case of objects, what is named is clusters of sensations, supplemented by possibilities of sensation. If an object is but a cluster of ideas, what is there to distinguish it from a mere thought?—Ed.
There is as little difficulty in tracing what is marked by the relatives, different, and same, when applied to ideas of this class. We say, the unicorn is different 63 from the horse; because, to the idea of the horse it adds that of a horn growing in the middle of the forehead. In the case of very complex ideas, it is much more difficult to say, with precision, what are the added and subtracted ideas, on account of which, we apply the term, different; as when we say, the courage of Ajax was different from that of Achilles; but it is not the less certain, that it is wholly on account of ideas added and subtracted, that we so denominate the courage of the two men.
Rather more explanation is needed, to shew what is peculiarly marked by the relatives equal, unequal, greater, less, when applied to the class of arbitrarily formed complex ideas.
We have already seen, that those terms are primarily applied to what we call objects, on account of their extension; objects are equal or unequal, greater or less, in extension.
We have also seen, that in marking the extension of different objects, we are under the necessity of taking some known object as a standard, and by that object naming others. Thus, we take the foot, and say that other objects are two feet, three feet, or the half or quarter of a foot, and so on.
Having become familiar with what we call degrees of extension, we are led to employ the same mode of notation, when we come to mark analogous differences in other cases of sensation. Thus, when we perceive the weight of different heavy bodies; as the terms equal, unequal, greater, less, are applied with convenience to certain cases of extension, it appears they may be applied with equal convenience, and even precision, to cases of weight. All other sensations, 64 having distinguishable differences, may be marked in the same way: thus sounds are more or less loud, and we speak of equal, or unequal, less or greater loudness of sound; less or greater sweetness in objects of the palate; less or greater resistance; less or greater pain; less or greater pleasure.
When the terms equal, unequal, less, greater, had been applied to simple sensations of the pleasurable kind, and their ideas; the transference of them to complex ideas, of the pleasurable or painful kind, was easy. If the less or greater sweetness of the rose and the woodbine, was a convenient notation, so was the less or greater beauty of those two flowers, the less or greater beauty of two women, the less or greater wisdom or folly, vice or virtue, of two men.
It thus appears, that, as we apply the term unlike to our complex ideas, on account of the addition and subtraction of ideas of different kinds, so we apply to them the term unequal, on account of the addition and subtraction of ideas of the same kind. Like and equal we apply, when we neither add, nor subtract.17
17 In this passage the author has got as near as it is perhaps possible to get, to an analysis of the ideas of More and Less. We say there is more of something, when, to what there already was, there has been superadded other matter of the same kind. And when there is no actual superadding, but merely two independent masses of the same substance, we call that one the greater which produces the same impression on our senses which the other would produce if an addition were made to it. So with differences of intensity. One sweet taste is called sweeter than another because it resembles the taste which would be produced by adding more sugar: and so forth. In all these cases there is presupposed an original difference in the sensations produced in us by the greater mass and by the smaller: but according to the explanation now offered, the idea which guides the application of the terms is that of physical juxtaposition.—Ed.
65 2. We apply the same relative terms to successive ideas of this class, which we apply to simple ideas, or the clusters called objects, when successive. We call them antecedent and consequent, or names equivalent; as prior, posterior; first, second; or even successive, which is a name including both antecedent and consequent.
In speaking of the relative terms applied to objects as successive, we had occasion to explain the two important terms, Cause and Effect. We found that Cause and Effect, were only other names for antecedent and consequent, in a certain set of cases. We do not use the terms, Cause and Effect, as synonymous with antecedent and consequent, in those cases in which, though the objects may be antecedent and consequent to our perception, we know not whether they are parts of the same series, or parts of two different series. Within the sphere of our observation, innumerable series of events are going on; and we are observing, first a part of one series, and then a part of another, continually. It is thus constantly happening, that those things, which are immediately antecedent and consequent to our observation, are not parts of the same series, but parts of different series; and, of course, in those antecedents and consequents, there is no constancy; they are accidental, as the course of each man’s attention. This may be illustrated by many familiar instances. There may be 66 immediately before me, a man playing on the violin, one series; another man filing a saw, a second series. My attention may pass immediately from the sight of the man playing on the violin, to the sound produced by the filing of the saw. Playing on the violin, and the disagreeable sound of the file on the saw, are thus antecedent and consequent to my attention. But, as we recognise such antecedents and consequents, as parts of different series of events, we do not call them cause and effect.
There are two cases of antecedents and consequents, even when they are parts of the same series. They may be proximate; or they may be remote; that is, parts of the series, more or fewer, may come between them. It is only to the case of the proximate parts of the same series, that the relatives, cause and effect, are properly and strictly applied. When the series, however, is the same, the intermediate links between any two remote parts are constant. Suppose a series, A, B, C, D; as B is the immediate consequent of A, C the immediate consequent of B, and D the immediate consequent of C; when I know A and D as antecedent and consequent, without knowing the intermediate parts B, and C, there is little inaccuracy in naming A and D cause and effect; because B and C are surely intermediate, and the succession of A and D, though not immediate, is constant. We accordingly do name cause and effect parts of a series thus removed from one another, in all those cases in which the intermediate parts are either unknown to us, or habitually overlooked.
The terms Cause and Effect, thus applied to Objects as antecedent and consequent, are applied also to 67 Thoughts as antecedent and consequent. Thus we say, that Evidence is the cause of Belief; Villany is the cause of Indignation, and so on.
Of objects, antecedent and consequent, we have observed, that innumerable series are existing at the same time; a separate series, of vegetation, for example, in every plant, of animalization in every animal, of composition and decomposition in objects without number. In the mind, however, there is but one train, not various trains at the same time; and therefore, according to the sense above applied to the terms Cause and Effect, each thought in a train is the cause of that which follows it, and each succeeding thought is the effect of that which precedes it.
But if thoughts are reciprocally Cause and Effect; that is to say, if, in trains of thought, the same antecedent is regularly followed by the same consequent, how happens it that all trains of thought are not the same? For if the ideas A, B, C, D, &c., constantly follow one another, every mind into which A may enter, goes on with B, C, D, &c., and hence all such minds should consist of the same trains, that is, should be the same.
Supposing the succession of two thoughts to have that constancy to which we apply the terms cause and effect, trains would still have that variety which we experience. Our trains consist of two distinguishable ingredients; sensations and ideas. Sensations depend upon the innumerable series of objects. They are, therefore, liable to all that variety which attends the perception of those objects. A perpetual variety in sensations produces a perpetual variety in the thoughts which are consequent upon them. The 68 variety of sensation, is even much greater than is commonly supposed. The most active of all our sensations is the sight. But in most objects of sight there are numerous parts. Some of these are more seen, some are less seen; some not seen at all. Of these, the parts that are more seen by one man, are less seen by another; whence it is probable, that from an object of any complexity no two men ever receive precisely the same sensations. There is a striking exemplification of this, in the fact, so constantly observed, of the different manner in which different men are affected by the comparison of two countenances. To one man there appears a strong likeness, where another man cannot discover any. Of the minute particulars, on which the likeness depends, none, or an insufficient number, is embraced by the vision of the one, while the contrary is the case with that of the other.
The variety in the sensations, which mix in the trains of men, is one grand cause of the variety in the ideas, which make up or complete those trains. The variety in the order of those sensations is another cause. We have seen that ideas follow one another, in the order in which the sensations have followed. Thus, a man may be a kind father to his child. The sight of him to the child is habitually accompanied with agreeable sensations. The same man may be a severe master to his slaves. The sight of him to the slaves is habitually accompanied with painful sensations. A corresponding difference exists in the case of the ideas. When his image presents itself to the mind of the child, it is followed by a train of pleasurable ideas, corresponding to the 69 pleasurable sensations which the child has habitually enjoyed in his presence. When his image rises to the mind of the slave, it is followed, from the contrary cause, by ideas of the contrary description.18
18 The author may seem to be anticipating a difficulty which few will feel, when he asks how it happens that all trains of thought are not the same. But what he is enquiring into is not why this happens, but how its happening is consistent with the doctrine he has just laid down. He is guarding against a possible objection to his proposition, that “the succession of two thoughts” has “that constancy to which we apply the terms Cause and Effect.” If (he says) it is by direct causation that an idea raises up another idea with which it is associated; and if it be the nature and the very meaning of a cause, to be invariably followed by its effect; how is it, he asks, that any two minds, which have once had the same idea, do not coincide in their whole subsequent history? And how is it that the same mind, when it gets back to an idea it has had before, does not go on revolving in an eternal round?
Of this difficulty he gives a solution, good as far as it goes—that it is because the train of ideas is interrupted by sensations, which are not the same in different minds, nor in the same mind at every repetition, and which even when they are the same, are connected in different minds with different associations. This is true, but is not the whole truth, and a still more complete explanation of the difficulty might have been given. The author has overlooked a part of the laws of association, of which he was perfectly aware, but to which he does not seem to have been always sufficiently alive. The first point overlooked is, that one idea seldom, perhaps never, entirely fills and engrosses the mind. We have almost always a considerable number of ideas in the mind at once; and it must be a very rare occurrence for any two persons, or for the same person twice over, to have exactly the same collection of ideas present, each in the same relative intensity. For this reason, were there no other, the ideas which the mental state excites by association are almost always more or less different.
A second point overlooked is, that every sensation or idea is far from recalling, whenever it occurs, all the ideas with which it is associated. It never recalls more than a portion of them, and a portion different at different times. The author has not, in any part of the Analysis, laid down any law that determines which among the many ideas associated with an idea or sensation, shall be actually called up by it in a given case. The selection which it makes among them depends on the truth already stated, that we seldom or never have only one idea at a time. When we have several together, they all exercise their suggesting power, and each of them aids, impedes, or modifies the suggesting power of the others. This important case of Association has been treated in a masterly manner by Mr. Bain, both in his larger treatise and in his Compendium, under the name of Compound Association, and he lays down the following as its most general law. “Past actions, sensations, thoughts, or emotions, are recalled more easily when associated either through contiguity or similarity, with more than one present object or impression.” (Compendium of Psychology and Ethics, p. 151.) It follows that when we have several ideas in our mind, none of which is able to call up all the ideas associated with it, those ideas will usually have the preference which are associated with more than one of the ideas already present. An idea A, coexisting in the mind with an idea B, will not select the same idea from among those associated with it, that it would it it occurred alone or with a different accompaniment. If there be any one of the ideas associated with A which is also associated with B, this will probably be one of those called up by their joint action. If there be any idea associated with A which not only is not associated with B, but whose negation is associated with B, this idea will probably be prevented from arising. If there are any sensations which have usually been presented in conjunction, not with A alone or with B alone, but with the combination A B, still more likely is it that the ideas of these will be recalled when A and B are thought of together, even though A or B by themselves might in preference have recalled some other.
These considerations will be found of primary importance in explaining and accounting for the course of human thought. They enable us, for example, to understand what it is that keeps a train of thought coherent, i.e. that maintains it of a given quality, or directs it to a given purpose. The ideas which succeed one another in the mind of a person who is writing a treatise on some subject, or striving to persuade or conciliate a tribunal or a deliberative assembly, are suggested one by another according to the general laws of association. Yet the ideas recalled are not those which would be called up on any common occasion by the same antecedents, but are those only which connect themselves in the writer’s or speaker’s mind with the end which he is aiming at. The reason is, that the various ideas of the train are not solitary in his mind, but there coexists with all of them (in a greater or less degree of constancy according to the quality of the mind) the highly interesting idea of the end in view: and the presence of this idea causes each of the ideas which pass through his mind while so engaged, to suggest such of the ideas associated with them as are also associated with the idea of the end, and not to suggest those which have no association with it. The ideas all follow one another in an associated train, each calling up by association the one which immediately follows it; but the perpetual presence or continual recurrence of the idea of the end, determines, within certain limits, which of the ideas associated with each link of the chain shall be aroused and form the next link. When we come to the author’s analysis of the power of the Will over our ideas, we shall find him taking exactly this view of it.
Concerning the simultaneous existence of many ideas in the mind, and the manner in which they modify each other’s exercise of the suggesting power, there is an able and instructive passage in Cardaillac’s Etudes Elémentaires de Philosophie, which has been translated and quoted by Sir William Hamilton in his Lectures, and which, being highly illustrative of the preceding remarks, I think it useful to subjoin.
“Among psychologists, those who have written on Memory and Reproduction with the greatest detail and precision, have still failed in giving more than a meagre outline of these operations. They have taken account only of the notions which suggest each other with a distinct and palpable notoriety. They have viewed the associations only in the order in which language is competent to express them; and as language, which renders them still more palpable and distinct, can only express them in a consecutive order, can only express them one after another, they have been led to suppose that thoughts only awaken in succession. Thus, a series of ideas mutually associated, resembles, on the doctrine of philosophers, a chain in which every link draws up that which follows; and it is by means of these links that intelligence labours through, in the act of reminiscence, to the end which it proposes to attain.
“There are some, indeed, among them, who are ready to acknowledge, that every actual circumstance is associated to several fundamental notions, and consequently to several chains, between which the mind may choose; they admit even that every link is attached to several others, so that the whole forms a kind of trellis,—a kind of network, which the mind may traverse in every direction, but still always in a single direction at once,—always in a succession similar to that of speech. This manner of explaining reminiscence is founded solely on this,—that, content to have observed all that is distinctly manifest in the phenomenon, they have paid no attention to the under-play of the latescent activities,—paid no attention to all that custom conceals, and conceals the more effectually in proportion as it is more completely blended with the natural agencies of mind.
“Thus their theory, true in itself, and setting out from a well-established principle, the Association of Ideas, explains in a satisfactory manner a portion of the phenomena of Reminiscence; but it is incomplete, for it is unable to account for the prompt, easy, and varied operations of this faculty, or for all the marvels it performs. On the doctrine of the philosophers, we can explain how a scholar repeats, without hesitation, a lesson he has learned, for all the words are associated in his mind according to the order in which he has studied them; how he demonstrates a geometrical theorem, the parts of which are connected together in the same manner: these and similar reminiscences of simple successions present no difficulties which the common doctrine cannot resolve. But it is impossible, on this doctrine, to explain the rapid and certain movement of thought, which, with a marvellous facility, passes from one order of subjects to another, only to return again to the first; which advances, retrogrades, deviates, and reverts, sometimes marking all the points on its route, again clearing, as if in play, immense intervals; which runs over, now in a manifest order, now in a seeming irregularity, all the notions relative to an object, often relative to several, between which no connection could be suspected; and this without hesitation, without uncertainty, without error, as the hand of a skilful musician expatiates over the keys of the most complex organ. All this is inexplicable on the meagre and contracted theory on which the phenomena of reproduction have been thought explained…….
“To form a correct notion of the phenomena of Reminiscence, it is requisite that we consider under what conditions it is determined to exertion. In the first place it is to be noted that, at every crisis of our existence, momentary circumstances are the causes which awaken our activity, and set our recollection at work to supply the necessaries of thought. In the second place, it is as constituting a want, (and by want I mean the result either of an act of desire or of volition) that the determining circumstance tends principally to awaken the thoughts with which it is associated. This being the case, we should expect, that each circumstance which constitutes a want, should suggest, likewise, the notion of the object, or objects, proper to satisfy it; and this is what actually happens. It is, however, further to be observed, that it is not enough that the want suggests the idea of the object; for if that idea were alone, it would remain without effect, since it could not guide me in the procedure I should follow. It is necessary, at the same time, that to the idea of this object there should be associated the notion of the relation of this object to the want, of the place where I may find it, of the means by which I may procure it, and turn it to account, &c. For instance, I wish to make a quotation:—This want awakens in me the idea of the author in whom the passage is to be found which I am desirous of citing; but this idea would be fruitless, unless there were conjoined, at the same time, the representation of the volume, of the place where I may obtain it, of the means I must employ, &c.
“Hence I infer, in the first place, that a want does not awaken an idea of its object alone, but that it awakens it accompanied with a number, more or less considerable, of accessory notions, which form, as it were, its train or attendance. This train may vary according to the nature of the want which suggests the notion of an object; but the train can never fall wholly off, and it becomes more indissolubly attached to the object, in proportion as it has been more frequently called up in attendance.
“I infer, in the second place, that this accompaniment of accessory notions, simultaneously suggested with the principal idea, is far from being as vividly and distinctly represented in consciousness as that idea itself; and when these accessories have once been completely blended with the habits of the mind, and its reproductive agency, they at length finally disappear, becoming fused, as it were, in the consciousness of the idea to which they are attached. Experience proves this double effect of the habits of reminiscence. If we observe our operations relative to the gratification of a want, we shall perceive that we are far from having a clear consciousness of the accessory notions; the consciousness of them is, as it were, obscured, and yet we cannot doubt that they are present to the mind, for it is they that direct our procedure in all its details.
“We must, therefore, I think, admit that the thought of an object immediately suggested by a desire, is always accompanied by an escort more or less numerous of accessory thoughts, equally present to the mind, though, in general, unknown in themselves to consciousness; that these accessories are not without their influence in guiding the operations elicited by the principal notion; and it may even be added that they are so much the more calculated to exert an effect in the conduct of our procedure, in proportion as, having become more part and parcel of our habits of reproduction, the influences they exert are further withdrawn, in ordinary, from the ken of consciousness.… The same thing may be illustrated by what happens to us in the case of reading. Originally each word, each letter, was a separate object of consciousness. At length, the knowledge of letters and words and lines being, as it were, fused into our habits, we no longer have any distinct consciousness of them, as severally concurring to the result, of which alone we are conscious. But that each word and letter has its effect,—an effect which can at any moment become an object of consciousness,—is shewn by the following experiment. If we look over a book for the occurrence of a particular name or word, we glance our eye over a page from top to bottom, and ascertain, almost in a moment, that it is or is not to be found therein. Here the mind is hardly conscious of a single word, but that of which it is in quest; but yet it is evident, that each other word and letter must have produced an obscure effect, which effect the mind was ready to discriminate and strengthen, so as to call it into clear consciousness, whenever the effect was found to be that which the letters of the word sought for could determine. But if the mind be not unaffected by the multitude of letters and words which it surveys, if it be able to ascertain whether the combination of letters constituting the word it seeks, be or be not actually among them, and all this without any distinct consciousness of all it tries and finds defective; why may we not suppose,—why are we not bound to suppose, that the mind may, in like manner, overlook its book of memory, and search among its magazines of latescent cognitions for the notions of which it is in want, awakening these into consciousness, and allowing the others to remain in their obscurity?
“A more attentive consideration of the subject will show, that we have not yet divined the faculty of Reminiscence in its whole extent. Let us make a single reflection. Continually struck by relations of every kind, continually assailed by a crowd of perceptions and sensations of every variety, and, at the same time, occupied by a complement of thoughts; we experience at once, and we are more or less distinctly conscious of, a considerable number of wants,—wants, sometimes real, sometimes factitious or imaginary,—phenomena, however, all stamped with the same characters, and all stimulating us to act with more or less energy. And as we choose among the different wants which we would satisfy, as well as among the different means of satisfying that want which we determine to prefer; and as the motives of this preference are taken either from among the principal ideas relative to each of these several wants, or from among the accessory ideas which habit has established into their necessary escorts;—in all these cases it is requisite, that all the circumstances should at once, and from the moment they have taken the character of wants, produce an effect, correspondent to that which, we have seen, is caused by each in particular. Hence we are compelled to conclude, that the complement of the circumstances by which we are thus affected, has the effect of rendering always present to us, and consequently of placing at our disposal, an immense number of thoughts; some of which certainly are distinctly recognised, being accompanied by a vivid consciousness, but the greater number of which, although remaining latent, are not the less effective in continually exercising their peculiar influence on our modes of judging and acting.
“We might say, that each of these momentary circumstances is a kind of electric shock which is communicated to a certain portion, to a certain limited sphere, of intelligence; and the sum of all these circumstances is equal to so many shocks which, given at once at so many different points, produce a general agitation. We may form some rude conception of this phenomenon by an analogy. We may compare it, in the former case, to those concentric circles which are presented to our observation on a smooth sheet of water, when its surface is agitated by throwing in a pebble; and, in the latter case, to the same surface when agitated by a number of pebbles thrown simultaneously at different points.
“To obtain a clearer notion of this phenomenon, I may add some observations on the relation of our thoughts among themselves, and with the determining circumstances of the moment.
“1°. Among the thoughts, notions, or ideas which belong to the different groups attached to the principal representations simultaneously awakened, there are some reciprocally connected by relations proper to themselves; so that, in this whole complement of coexistent activities, these tend to excite each other to higher vigour, and consequently to obtain for themselves a kind of pre-eminence in the group or particular circle of activity to which they belong.
“2°. There are thoughts associated, whether as principals or accessories, to a greater number of determining circumstances, or to circumstances which recur more frequently. Hence they present themselves oftener than the others, they enter more completely into our habits, and take, in a more absolute manner, the character of customary or habitual notions. It hence results, that they are less obtrusive, though more energetic, in their influence, enacting, as they do, a principal part in almost all our deliberations; and exercising a stronger influence on our determinations.
“3°. Among this great crowd of thoughts, simultaneously excited, those which are connected with circumstances which more vividly affect us, assume not only the ascendant over others of the same description with themselves, but likewise predominate over all those which are dependent on circumstances of a feebler determining influence.
“From these three considerations we ought, therefore, to infer, that the thoughts connected with circumstances on which our attention is more specially concentrated, are those which prevail over the others; for the effect of attention is to render dominant and exclusive the object on which it is directed, and during the moment of attention it is the circumstance to which we attend that necessarily obtains the ascendant.
“Thus, if we appreciate correctly the phenomena of Reproduction or Reminiscence, we shall recognise, as an incontestable fact, that our thoughts suggest each other not one by one successively, as the order to which language is astricted might lead us to infer; but that the complement of circumstances under which we at every moment exist, awakens simultaneously a great number of thoughts; these it calls into the presence of the mind, either to place them at our disposal, if we find it requisite to employ them, or to make them co-operate in our deliberations by giving them, according to their nature and our habits, an influence, more or less active, on our judgments and consequent acts.
“It is also to be observed, that in this great crowd of thoughts always present to the mind, there is only a small number of which we are distinctly conscious: and that in this small number we ought to distinguish those which, being clothed in language, oral or mental, become the objects of a more fixed attention; those which hold a closer relation to circumstances more impressive than others; or which receive a predominant character by the more vigorous attention we bestow on them. As to the others, although not the objects of clear consciousness, they are nevertheless present to the mind, there to perform a very important part as motive principles of determination; and the influence which they exert in this capacity is even the more powerful in proportion as it is less apparent, being more disguised by habit.” (Sir William Hamilton’s Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii. Lecture xxxii.)—Ed.
70 This, then, is all which seems necessary to be said respecting the occasions on which we apply Relative 71 Terms, and to show what it is which they distinctively mark, in the trains of our sensations and ideas.
72
