To this activity which exists and manifests itself in the facts of feeling, perceiving, &c., we can give a name in order to identify and recognise it: we will call it the consciousness[14] (_la conscience_), and we will call object everything which is not the act of consciousness. After this preliminary distinction, to which we shall often refer, we will go over the principal manifestations of the mind, and we will first study the objects of cognition, reserving for another chapter the study of the acts of cognition--that is to say, of consciousness. We will thus examine successively sensation, idea, emotion, and will. It has been often maintained that the peculiar property of mind is to perceive sensations. It has also been said that thought--that is, the property of representing to one's self that which does not exist--distinguishes mind from matter. Lastly, it has not failed to be affirmed that one thing which the mind brings into the material world is its power of emotion; and moralists, choosing somewhat arbitrarily among certain emotions, have said that the mind is the creator of goodness. We will endeavour to analyse these different affirmations. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 13: See [Note 3], _sup._ on p. 15.--ED.] [Footnote 14: The word "_conscience_" is one of those which has been used in the greatest number of different meanings. Let it be, at least, understood that _I_ use it here in an intellectual and not a moral sense. I do not attach to the conscience the idea of a moral approbation or disapprobation, of a duty, of a remorse. The best example to illustrate conscience has, perhaps, been formed by LADD. It is the contrast between a person awake and sleeping a dreamless sleep. The first has consciousness of a number of things; the latter has consciousness of nothing. Let me now add that we distinguish from consciousness that multitude of things of which one has consciousness of. Of these we make the object of consciousness. [_Conscience_ has throughout been rendered "consciousness."--ED.]] CHAPTER II DEFINITION OF SENSATION When making the analysis of matter we impliedly admitted two propositions: first, that sensation is the _tertium quid_ which is interposed between the excitant of our sensory nerves and ourselves; secondly, that the aggregate of our sensations is all we can know of the outer world, so that it is correct to define this last as the collection of our present, past, and possible sensations. It is not claimed that the outer world is nothing else than this, but it is claimed with good reason that the outer world is nothing else _to us_.