Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Evolution (Biology)
Now, if that faint reproduction of a sensation, which we call the memory of
it, is properly termed a thought, it seems to me to be a somewhat forced
proceeding to draw a hard and fast line of demarcation between thoughts and
sensations. If sensations are not rudimentary thoughts, it may be said that
some thoughts are rudimentary sensations. No amount of sound constitutes an
echo, but for all that no one would pretend that an echo is something of
totally different nature from a sound. Again, nothing can be looser, or
more inaccurate, than the assertion that "sensations supply the conditions
for the existence of thought or knowledge." If this implies that sensations
supply the conditions for the existence of our memory of sensations or of
our thoughts about sensations, it is a truism which it is hardly worth
while to state so solemnly. If it implies that sensations supply anything
else, it is obviously erroneous. And if it means, as the context would seem
to show it does, that sensations are the subject-matter of all thought or
knowledge, then it is no less contrary to fact, inasmuch as our emotions,
which constitute a large part of the subject-matter of thought or of
knowledge, are not sensations.
More eccentric still is the Quarterly Reviewer's next piece of psychology.
"Altogether, we may clearly distinguish at least six kinds of action to
which the nervous system ministers:--
"I. That in which impressions received result in appropriate movements
without the intervention of sensation or thought, as in the cases of injury
above given.--This is the reflex action of the nervous system.
"II. That in which stimuli from without result in sensations through the
agency of which their due effects are wrought out.--Sensation.
"III. That in which impressions received result in sensations which give
rise to the observation of sensible objects.--Sensible perception.
"IV. That in which sensations and perceptions continue to coalesce,
agglutinate, and combine in more or less complex aggregations, according to
the laws of the association of sensible perceptions.--Association.
"The above four groups contain only indeliberate operations, consisting, as
they do at the best, but of mere _presentative_ sensible ideas in no
way implying any reflective or _representative_ faculty. Such actions
minister to and form _Instinct_. Besides these, we may distinguish two
other kinds of mental action, namely:--
"V. That in which sensations and sensible perceptions are reflected on by
thought, and recognised as our own, and we ourselves recognised by
ourselves as affected and perceiving.--Self-consciousness.
"VI. That in which we reflect upon our sensations or perceptions, and ask
what they are, and why they are.--Reason.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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