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
One very important circumstance of agreement in the physical
investigations of mind and matter, we found to be, that, of both
matter and mind, the successive phenomena are all which we truly
know, though by the very constitution of our nature, it is impossible
for us not to ascribe these to some _permanent subject_. _Matter_
is the permanent subject of certain qualities, extension, and its
consequent divisibility, attraction, repulsion; that is to say, it is
the permanent exhibiter to us of certain varying phenomena which we
observe. _Mind_ is the permanent subject of certain qualities or states
or affections of a different class--perception, memory, reason, joy,
grief, love, hate; that is to say, of certain varying phenomena of
which we are conscious. What _matter_ is independent of our perception;
what _mind_ is independent of its temporary variety of feeling, it
is impossible for us to discover; since whatever new knowledge of
matter we can suppose ourselves to acquire, must be acquired by our
perception, and must, therefore, be relative to it; and whatever new
knowledge we can suppose ourselves to acquire of mind, must be itself
a state or affection of the mind, and, therefore, only a new mental
phenomenon to be added to those with which we were before acquainted,
as one of the many states in which the permanent substance _mind_ is
capable of existing.
Since it is only by their relation to our own feelings, then, that
substances can be known to us, beyond these relations it would be vain
for us to think of penetrating; as vain, at least, as would be the
attempts of the deaf to discover, by a process of reasoning, the nature
of the sensations of sound, or of the blind to determine, not the
lines of direction merely, in which the various coloured rays of light
pass after refraction, for these they may optically determine, but the
various sensations, corresponding with all the varieties of tint into
which the sun-beams are broken by the drops of a falling shower. The
substance matter, the substance mind, are, in this respect, to the
whole race of metaphysical inquirers, what the rainbow, as a series of
colours, is to opticians, who have never seen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account