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
If, then, as I cannot but think, the arrangement of the mental
phenomena, as belonging to two classes of powers, the intellectual
and the active, be at once incomplete, and not accurate, even to the
extent to which it reaches, it may be worth while to try at least some
other division, even though there should not be any very great hope of
success. Though we should fail in our endeavour to obtain some more
precise and comprehensive principle of arrangement, there is also some
advantage gained, by viewing objects, according to new circumstances
of agreement or analogy. We see, in this case, what had long-passed
before us unobserved, while we were accustomed only to the order and
nomenclature of a former method; for, when the mind has been habituated
to certain classifications, it is apt, in considering objects, to
give its attention only to those properties which are essential to
the classification, and to overlook, or at least comparatively to
neglect, other properties equally important and essential to the very
nature of the separate substances that are classed, but not included
in the system as characters of generic resemblance. The individual
object, indeed, when its place in any system has been long fixed and
familiar to us, is probably conceived by us less, as an _individual_,
than as one of a class of individuals, that agree in certain respects,
and the frequent consideration of it, as one of a class, must fix
the peculiar relations of the class, more strongly in the mind, and
weaken proportionally the impression of every other quality that is
not so included. A _new_ classification, therefore, which includes,
in its generic character, those neglected qualities, will of course
draw to them attention, which they could not otherwise have obtained;
and, the more various the views are, which we take of the objects of
any science, the juster consequently, because the more equal, will be
the estimate which we form of them. So truly is this the case, that I
am convinced, that no one has ever read over the mere terms of a new
division, in a science, however familiar the science may have been to
him, without learning more than this new division itself, without being
struck with some property or relation, the importance of which he _now_
perceives most clearly, and which he is quite astonished that he should
have overlooked so long before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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