The Scottish Philosophy [262]
or the vibrations that constitute the light. What, then, do we perceive? Hamilton. allowed that it was not the distant tree; for he adopted the Berkleian theory of vision, and held that we are immediately percipient of distance by the eye. What, then, do we see immediately? Hamilton was helped here by another doctrine of his, that the mind may be said to be indiscriminately in the brain and in the whole nervous apparatus, so long as it keeps up its connection with the centre; and by the further doctrine that our primary perceptions are of our bodily frame and of objects in contact with it. In taste, smell, and hearing, we perceive the palate, nostrils, ear; in feeling, our extended frame; and by the muscular sense an extra-organic object resisting our energy. The proper account is, that in sense-perception, when formed, we perceive our frame as affected or objects affecting the frame. I am ready to allow as many processes as the physiologist can prove to exist in the nervous system and brain prior to perception. But I hold that perception is a mental and not a bodily act. We hold further that nervous action, and brain action and cellular, do not constitute perception, which is knowledge. I assert that, while there may be bodily antecedents, they are not properly the causes of perception or any proper mental act, such as the perception of beauty or of moral excellence. I may add that I have no objections to find them represented as the occasions or conditions of sense-perception, not therefore of our higher mental acts. If we hold, as I hold, that in creature action all causes are concauses, that is composed of more than one agent, then the brain action may be an agent, a necessary but inferior agent, in producing perception, the main agency being a capacity of the mind. I am inclined to go a step further, and to allow that the defenders of natural realism might admit for the sake of argument, and admit out and out if proven, that there is a process of reasoning in every perceptive operation, even in such an operation as perceiving snow as a colored surface -- just as all admit that there is inference when we place that snow on a mountain too at a distance. But still they will insist that when mind perceives matter, it {435} perceives it as out of itself, and as extended; that it cannot infer this from a nervous action, or from an unextended sensation or impression within the mind; and that the perception of an external, extended object, be it in the body or beyond the body, must be immediate, intuitive, and original.
II. Sir William Hamilton has been much landed for the view which he has given of Consciousness. In this I cannot concur. He avows that he uses consciousness in two distinct senses or applications. First, he has a general consciousness treated of largely in the first volume. This he tells us cannot be defined. (Vol. I. P. 158.) " But it comprehends all the modifications, -- all -- the phenomena of the thinking subject." (p. 183.) ',Knowledge and belief are both contained under consciousness." (p. 191.) Again, "consciousness is co-extensive with our cognitive faculties." " Our special faculties of knowledge are only modifications of consciousness." (P. 207.) He shows that consciousness implies discrimination, judgment, and memory. (P. 202-206.) This is wide enough: still he imposes a limit; for consciousness " is an immediate not a mediate knowledge." (p. 202.) Already, as it seems to me, inconsistencies are beginning to creep in -- for he had told us first that consciousness includes "all the phenomena of the thinking subject;" now be so limits it as to exclude ,mediate knowledge," which is surely a modification of the thinking subject. Consciousness is represented as including belief; and yet it must exclude all those beliefs in which the object is not immediately before us. He stoutly maintains what no one will deny, that this general consciousness is not a special faculty; but when he comes to draw out a list of faculties in the second volume, he includes among them a special faculty, which he calls
II. Sir William Hamilton has been much landed for the view which he has given of Consciousness. In this I cannot concur. He avows that he uses consciousness in two distinct senses or applications. First, he has a general consciousness treated of largely in the first volume. This he tells us cannot be defined. (Vol. I. P. 158.) " But it comprehends all the modifications, -- all -- the phenomena of the thinking subject." (p. 183.) ',Knowledge and belief are both contained under consciousness." (p. 191.) Again, "consciousness is co-extensive with our cognitive faculties." " Our special faculties of knowledge are only modifications of consciousness." (P. 207.) He shows that consciousness implies discrimination, judgment, and memory. (P. 202-206.) This is wide enough: still he imposes a limit; for consciousness " is an immediate not a mediate knowledge." (p. 202.) Already, as it seems to me, inconsistencies are beginning to creep in -- for he had told us first that consciousness includes "all the phenomena of the thinking subject;" now be so limits it as to exclude ,mediate knowledge," which is surely a modification of the thinking subject. Consciousness is represented as including belief; and yet it must exclude all those beliefs in which the object is not immediately before us. He stoutly maintains what no one will deny, that this general consciousness is not a special faculty; but when he comes to draw out a list of faculties in the second volume, he includes among them a special faculty, which he calls