The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and the Arts, July-December, 1827Various
Science
The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and the Arts, July-December, 1827
Various
Arts -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The operations, which succeed each other with this limited rapidity,
are not incompatible with a partial attention to other subjects: just
as in running or walking, we may have our feelings very strongly
interested by the sight of surrounding objects without interrupting
the train of voluntary motions, which seems thus to be so linked
together in a continued chain, as to become almost involuntary. And
we may certainly be saying a thing over as rapidly as possible to
ourselves, and may at the same time be seeing, and hearing, and even
reasoning, so as to keep up what amounts very nearly, though not
completely, to a continuity of attention to several distinct trains
of ideas: in the same manner as the nerves of involuntary action
are notoriously employed in several distinct trains of concatenated
muscular motions and vascular actions, and as the ear of a musician
is able to follow and retain a dozen different melodies in harmony
with each other at the same time.
Dr. Darwin mentions an experiment which has a similar tendency to
show the close connexion between thought and sensation. He says, that
if we think intensely of a deep colour, for instance red, with the
eyes closed, we shall see a tinge when we open them of the opposite
colour, or green; just as if we had actually looked at a red colour
instead of thinking of it. But I confess that I have never been able
to satisfy myself completely of the success of the experiment.
These very hasty observations appear to me to be in great measure
original; and the results of such experiments are certainly more
calculated to illustrate the nature and powers of the human
mind, than the fanciful hypothesis of the fashionable [p310]
craniologists, with all their measurements of the heads of
murderers, are likely to become.
ZMINIS.
_London_, 20 _Oct._ 1827.
POSTSCRIPT.—I find that some similar remarks have been made by the
late Sir William Watson, in his Treatise on Time. He estimated,
from some experiments made in company with his friend Herschel, the
greatest possible velocity of sensation, such as to admit of about
three hundred distinct impressions on the eye or the ear in a second.
“It is true,” he observes, “that whoever attends to what passes
in his imagination on particular occasions, will be struck at the
apparent rapidity with which ideas appear to flow at times, and will
be apt to suspect them far to exceed sensation in that respect. But
it is probable that we are ourselves deceived in such cases.” P. 38.
But there are no direct experiments to prove this opinion. On the
other hand, a sound may be continuous, and yet consist of only about
twenty vibrations, or still fewer, in a second.
HIEROGLYPHICAL _Fragments, illustrative of Inscriptions preserved
in the_ BRITISH MUSEUM, _with some remarks on_ Mr. CHAMPOLLION’s
_opinions_. In _a Letter to the Cavaliere_ SAN QUINTINO. By a
Correspondent.
My dear Sir,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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