The Physical Basis of Mind: Being the Second Series of Problems of Life and Mind.Lewes, George Henry
Philosophy
The Physical Basis of Mind: Being the Second Series of Problems of Life and Mind.
Lewes, George Henry
Mind and body; Psychophysiology
But since Hunger and Thirst, Joy and Grief, Pain and Terror, are also
_felt_, yet are never classed under the head of Matter, the grounds of
the classification of feelings have to be expressed. Professor Bain
makes the distinction between Matter and Mind to rest solely on the
presence or absence of Extension: this is the decisive mark: Matter
he defines as the Extended. The definition is inadequate. When I see
a dog and its image reflected in a pool, or see a dog and think of
another, in the three cases dog, image, and idea have Extension; but
I recognize the dog as a material fact, the idea as a mental fact;
and although the image of the dog has material conditions by which
I am optically affected, just as the idea has material cerebral
conditions, I recognize a marked difference between them and the dog,
due to the different modes of apprehension. The dog is known as a
persistent reality, which, when Sight is supplemented by Touch, will
yield sensations of Resistance, and thus disclose its materiality. The
image vanishes if I attempt to touch it; I see its outlines waver and
become confused with every disturbance of the surface of the pool;
the idea vanishes when another idea arises; whence I conclude that
neither has material reality, because neither has the Resistance which
characterizes the Not-Self. The image and the idea may be referred to
material conditions, but so may pains, terrors, volitions, yet these
are all without Extension, simply because they are not visual feelings.
42. Matter does not represent all feelings, but only the objective
sensibles; and these are not all characterized by Extension, but only
those which directly or indirectly involve optico-tactical experiences
accompanied by muscular experiences. Matter is primarily the Visible
and Resistant; and secondarily, whatever can be imagined as such;
so that ether, molecules, and atoms, although neither visible nor
tangible, are ranged under the head of Matter. Color is a feeling as
Sound and Scent are feelings, and although material conditions are
equally presupposed in all three, yet Color alone has Extension, and
because it can be imaged it has a more objective character than the
others, which having no lines and surfaces, want the optical conditions
for the formation of images, and are less definitely connected with
tactical and muscular experiences. Nevertheless, since Sound and Scent
are obviously associated with objects seen and touched, they have a
degree of materiality never assigned to such feelings as Hunger and
Thirst, Pleasure, Terror, and Hope.
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