The Story of the Earth and ManDawson, John William, Sir
Science
The Story of the Earth and Man
Dawson, John William, Sir
Human beings -- Origin; Paleontology
"As it is very necessary to keep up a clear distinction between these
two processes, let the one be called neurosis and the other psychosis.
When the gamekeeper was first trained to his work, every step in the
process of neurosis was accompanied by a corresponding step in that of
psychosis, or nearly so. He was conscious of seeing something,
conscious of making sure it was a hare, conscious of desiring to catch
it, and therefore to loose the greyhound at the right time, conscious
of the acts by which he let the dog out of the leash. But with
practice, though the various steps of the neurosis remain--for
otherwise the impression on the retina would not result in the loosing
of the dog--the great majority of the steps of the psychosis vanish,
and the loosing of the dog follows unconsciously, or, as we say,
without thinking about, upon the sight of the hare. No one will deny
that the series of acts which originally intervened between the
sensation and the letting go of the dog were, in the strictest sense,
intellectual and rational operations. Do they cease to be so when the
man ceases to be conscious of them? that depends upon what is the
essence and what the accident of these operations, which taken
together constitute ratiocination. Now, ratiocination is resolvable
into predication, and predication consists in marking, in some way,
the existence, the co-existence, the succession, the likeness and
unlikeness, of things or their ideas. Whatever does this, reasons; and
if a machine produces the effects of reason, I see no more ground for
denying to it the reasoning power because it is unconscious, then I
see for refusing to Mr. Babbage's engine the title of a calculating
machine on the same grounds."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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