Classical literature; Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800
Leaving the a priori conditions of sensation we may proceed to consider
acts of sense. These admit of various degrees of duration or intensity;
they admit also of a greater or less extension from one object, which is
perceived directly, to many which are perceived indirectly or in a less
degree, and to the various associations of the object which are latent
in the mind. In general the greater the intension the less the extension
of them. The simplest sensation implies some relation of objects to
one another, some position in space, some relation to a previous or
subsequent sensation. The acts of seeing and hearing may be almost
unconscious and may pass away unnoted; they may also leave an impression
behind them or power of recalling them. If, after seeing an object we
shut our eyes, the object remains dimly seen in the same or about the
same place, but with form and lineaments half filled up. This is the
simplest act of memory. And as we cannot see one thing without at
the same time seeing another, different objects hang together in
recollection, and when we call for one the other quickly follows. To
think of the place in which we have last seen a thing is often the
best way of recalling it to the mind. Hence memory is dependent on
association. The act of recollection may be compared to the sight of an
object at a great distance which we have previously seen near and seek
to bring near to us in thought. Memory is to sense as dreaming is to
waking; and like dreaming has a wayward and uncertain power of recalling
impressions from the past.
Thus begins the passage from the outward to the inward sense. But as
yet there is no conception of a universal--the mind only remembers
the individual object or objects, and is always attaching to them some
colour or association of sense. The power of recollection seems to
depend on the intensity or largeness of the perception, or on the
strength of some emotion with which it is inseparably connected. This is
the natural memory which is allied to sense, such as children appear to
have and barbarians and animals. It is necessarily limited in range, and
its limitation is its strength. In later life, when the mind has become
crowded with names, acts, feelings, images innumerable, we acquire
by education another memory of system and arrangement which is both
stronger and weaker than the first--weaker in the recollection
of sensible impressions as they are represented to us by eye or
ear--stronger by the natural connexion of ideas with objects or with one
another. And many of the notions which form a part of the train of our
thoughts are hardly realized by us at the time, but, like numbers or
algebraical symbols, are used as signs only, thus lightening the labour
of recollection.
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