The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
[35] The following is a legitimate question: To what kind of nervous
processes is the sensation green to be mentally added. Such questions
can be solved only by special inquiry, and not by a reference in a
general way to motion and electric currents. How disadvantageous our
remaining satisfied with such general conceptions is, can be seen from
the fact that inquirers have been repeatedly on the brink of abandoning
the _specific energies_, one of the greatest acquisitions we have made,
simply because they were unable to discover any difference in the
currents of different sensory nerves. I was impelled as early as 1863
in my lectures on psycho-physics to call attention to the fact that the
_most diverse kinds_ of nervous processes can conceal themselves in a
current. Current is an abstraction and places in relief but one feature
of the process—the passage of energy though a transverse section. A
current in diluted sulphuric acid is something entirely different from a
current in copper. We must therefore also expect that a current in the
acoustic nerve is something entirely different from a current in the
optic nerve.
[36] It is the transitoriness of sense-perceptions that so easily leads
us to regard them as mere appearances as contrasted with permanent
bodies. I have repeatedly pointed out that unconditioned permanent states
do not exist in nature, that permanences of connection only exist. A
body is for me the same complex of sight-and-touch-sensations every time
that it is placed in the same circumstances of illumination, position in
space, temperature, and so forth. The supposed constancy of the body is
the constancy of the union of _A_, _B_, _C_ ... or the constancy of the
_equation f_(_A_, _B_, _C_ ...) = 0.
PROFESSOR CLIFFORD ON THE SOUL IN NATURE.
No one can read Clifford’s Lectures and Essays, without feeling that,
if their author is less known and valued as an original thinker than as
a master of mathematical analysis, it is only because having turned the
force of his genius onto mathematics first he had time to complete some
work in that direction, whereas his premature death in 1879 only allowed
him to give us an earnest of the philosophical work which he had it in
him to perform.
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