Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
Religion
Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
The whole of what man individually or collectively puts forth, as the
product of his mind or of all minds, is the totality of _Expression_, in
a sense which exactly counterparts the totality of _Impression_.
Impression is related to Nature, external to man, and acting on him.
Expression has relation to Art, externalized from within man, and taken
in that large sense which means all human performance whatsoever.
Science is _systematized knowing_, and is a middle term, or stands and
functionates mediatorially between Impression or Nature and Expression
or Art.
Nature or the external world impresses itself upon mind, primarily,
through the Senses, and predominantly stands related with the sense of
Feeling, of which all the other special senses are merely modified forms
or differentiations. Feeling as a sense (the sense of Touch), is allied
again with Affection, the internal counterpart of the mere external
sensation, as testified to etymologically by the use of the same word to
express both; namely, Feeling as the synonyme of Touch, and Feeling as
the synonyme of Affection. _Conation_, from the Latin _conari_, TO
EXERT ONESELF, TO PUT FORTH EFFORT, is the term employed by
metaphysicians to signify both _Desire_ and _Will_, the last being the
determination of the mind which results in action. Conation is therefore
related to action, which is again _Expression_, and is also Art, in the
large definition of the term above given.
The grand primary distribution of the Mind made by Kant, followed by Sir
William Hamilton, and now concurred in by the students of the mind
generally, is into: 1. FEELING; 2. KNOWING; and 3.
CONATION (or Will and Desire). In accordance with this is Comte's
famous epitome of the business of life: AGIR PAR AFFECTION, ET
PENSER POUR AGIR; the three terms here being again, 1. Affection
(or Feeling); 2. Knowledge (or Reflection); and 3. Action (or
Performance).
If now, instead of distributing the Mind, we enlarge the sphere of our
thinking, and distribute upon the same principle the total Universe (_as
if it_ were a mind or a mirror of the mind), for Feeling or Affection we
shall put Impression or Nature; for Knowing or Reflection we shall put
Science or Systematized Knowledge; and for Conation or Action we shall
put Art.
The following table will exhibit the two series of distribution, that of
the Universe at large, and that of the Human Mind, in their parallelism,
reading the two columns from below upward:
I. _Universe_. II. _Mind_.
3. ART (_or Expression_). 3. CONATION (or Will and Desire).
2. SCIENCE. 2. KNOWING.
1. NATURE (_or Impression_). 1. FEELING (_or Affection_).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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