Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind
John Stuart Mill · en
The importance of drawing a broad line between the active and the
passive branches of our primary sensibilities is seen in various
applications, but most especially in the problem of {5} External
Perception. The great distinction that this problem requires us to
draw between the external and the internal sides of our being (so
described by an imperfect metaphor) has its deepest foundation in
the distinction between the sense of expended muscular energy and
the feelings that are neither energy in themselves, nor vary
definitely according to our energies. The qualities of things
admitted on all hands to be qualities of the external (or object)
world--called the Primary Qualities, Resistance and Extension,--are
modes of our muscular energies; the qualities that do not of
themselves suggest externality, or objectivity,--the secondary
qualities, as Heat, Colour, &c.--are our passive sensibilities, and
do not contain muscular energy. When these secondary qualities enter
into definite connections with our movements, they are then referred
to the external, or object world. Light and colour, when varying
definitely with our various movements, as postures and actions, are
from that circumstance referred to the external, or _non-ego_;
without such connections they would be called internal or subjective
states.
The contrasted terms 'Object' and 'Subject' are the least
exceptionable for expressing the fundamental antithesis of
consciousness and of existence. Matter and Mind, External and
Internal, are the popular synonyms, but are less free from
misleading suggestions. Extension is the Object fact by
pre-eminence; Pleasure and Pain are the most marked phases of pure
Subjectivity. Between the consciousness of extension and the
consciousness of a pleasure there is the broadest line that can be
drawn within the human experience; the broadest distinction in the
whole universe of being. These then are the Object and Subject
extremes; and, in the final analysis, the object extreme appears to
be grounded on the feeling of expended muscular energy.