Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind (Vol. 1 of 3)Brown, Thomas
Philosophy
Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind (Vol. 1 of 3)
Brown, Thomas
Philosophy; Psychology
RECAPITULATION OF THE FOUR PRECEDING LECTURES; AND APPLICATION OF THE
LAWS OF PHYSICAL INQUIRY TO THE STUDY OF MIND, COMMENCED.
For several Lectures, Gentlemen, we have been employed in considering
the objects that are to be had in view, in Physical Inquiry in general,
a clear conception of which seems to me as essential to the Philosophy
of Mind, as to the Philosophy of Matter. I should now proceed to apply
these general remarks more particularly to our own science; but, before
doing this, it may be of advantage to retrace slightly our steps in the
progress already made.
All inquiry, with respect to the various substances in nature, we have
seen, must regard them as they exist in _space_, or as they exist in
_time_,--the inquiry, in the one case, being into their composition;
the inquiry, in the other case, into the changes which they exhibit.
The first of these views we found to be very simple, having, for
its object, only the discovery of what is actually before us at the
moment,--which, therefore, if we had been endowed with senses of
greater delicacy and acuteness, we might have known, without any
inquiry whatever. It is the investigation of the elements, or separate
bodies, that exist together, in the substances which we considered, or
rather that constitute the substances which we considered, by occupying
the space which we assign to the one imaginary aggregate, and are
regarded by us as one substance,--not from any absolute unity which
they have in nature, since the elementary atoms, however continuous or
near, have an existence as truly separate and independent, as if they
had been created at the distance of worlds,--but from a unity, that is
relative only to our incapacity of distinguishing them as separate. It
is to the imperfection of our senses, then, that this first division of
Physical Inquiry owes its origin; and its most complete results could
enable us to discover only, what has been before our eyes from the
moment of our birth.
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