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
intellectual instrument, which he uses, not for calculations of this
kind only, but for all the speculative and moral purposes of life, as
it can be to know the exact power of that subordinate instrument, which
he uses only for his occasional survey of the heavens.
To the philosophy of mind, then, every speculation, in every science,
may be said to have relation as to a common centre. The knowledge
of the quality of matter, in the whole wide range of physics, is not
itself a phenomenon of matter, more than the knowledge of any of our
intellectual or moral affections; it is truly, in all its stages of
conjecture, comparison, doubt, belief, a phenomenon of mind; or,
in other words, it is only the mind itself existing in a certain
state. The inanimate bodies around us might, indeed, exhibit the same
changes as at present, though no mind had been created. But science
is not the existence of these inanimate bodies; it is the principle
of thought itself variously modified by them, which, as it exists in
certain states, constitutes that knowledge which we term _Astronomy_;
in certain other states, that knowledge which we term _Chemistry_;
in other states our Physiology, corporeal or mental, and all the
other divisions and subdivisions of science. It would surely be
absurd to suppose, that the mixture of acids and alkalies constitutes
_Chemistry_, or that Astronomy is formed by the revolution of planets
round a sun. Such phenomena, the mere objects of science, are only the
occasions on which Astronomy and Chemistry arise in the mind of the
inquirer, Man. It is the mind which perceives bodies, which reasons
on their apparent relations, which joins them in thought as similar,
however distant they may be in sphere, or separates them in thought
as dissimilar, though apparently contiguous. These perceptions,
reasonings, and classifications of the mind must, of course be
regulated by the laws of mind, which mingle in their joint result
with the laws of matter. It is the object indeed which affects the
mind when sentient; but it is the original susceptibility of the mind
itself, which determines and modifies the particular affection, very
nearly, if I may illustrate what is mental by so coarse an image, as
the impression which a seal leaves on melted wax depends, not on the
qualities of the wax alone, or of the seal alone, but on the softness
of the one, and the form of the other. Change the external object which
affects the mind in any case, and we all know, that the affection of
the mind will be different. It would not be less so, if, without any
change of object, there could be a change in the mere feeling, whatever
it might be, which would result from that different susceptibility
becoming instantly as different, as if not the mind had been altered,
but the object which it perceived. There is no physical science,
therefore, in which the laws of mind are not to be considered together
with the laws of matter; and a change in either set of laws would
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