The Scottish Philosophy [265]
wave at the distance, we suppose, is inaudible; we must, how ever, admit that they produce a certain modification beyond consciousness, on the percipient object." (Vol. I. P. 351.) He speaks of our perception of a forest as made up of impressions left by each leaf, which impressions are below consciousness. There is an entire misinterpretation of the facts in these statements, and this according to Hamilton's own theory of the object intuitively perceived. The mind is not immediately cognizant of the sound of the sea or of its several waves; nor of the trees of the forest and their several leaves. All that it knows intuitively is an affection of the organism as affected by the sound or sight. The impression made by the distant object is on the organism, and when the impression is sufficiently strong on the organism, the mind is called into exercise, and from the organic affections or the external and distant cause. Thus there is no proof of a mental operation of which we are unconscious.
He explains by these supposed unconscious acts a class of mental phenomena with which every one who has ever reflected on the operations of his own mind is familiar. The merchant walks in a brown study from his house to his place of business; there must have been many mental acts performed on the way, but they are now all gone. The question is, were they ever before the consciousness? Hamilton maintains that they never were; Dugald Stewart maintains that they were for the time, but that the mind cannot recall them. Notwithstanding all the acute remarks of Hamilton, I adhere to the theory of Stewart. I do so on the general principle that in devising a theory to explain a set of phenomena we should never call in a class of facts, of whose existence we have no other proof, when we can account for the whole by an order of facts known to exist on independent evidence. Hamilton says: "When suddenly awakened during sleep (and to ascertain the fact I have caused myself to be roused at different seasons of the {440} night), I have always been able to observe that I was in the middle of a dream;" but adds, "that he was often scarcely certain of more than the fact that he was not awakened from an unconscious state, and that we are often not able to recollect our dreams." He gives, as the peculiarity of somnambulism, that we have no recollection when we awake of what has occurred during its continuance. (Vol. I. P. 320-322.) Every one will admit that we are often conscious of states at the time, which we either cannot remember at all, or (what will equally serve our purpose) more probably cannot remember, except for a very brief period after we have experienced them. We have thus an established order of facts competent to explain the whole phenomenon without resorting to a Leibnitzian doctrine, which has been applied by certain later German pantheists to show how existence may rise gradually from deadness to life, and from unconsciousness to consciousness.
Under the head of the reproductive faculties he has two profound lectures on the Association of Ideas. In the close of his edition of Reid there is a learned disquisition on the well-known passage of Aristotle, in which he gives, with his usual brevity, a classification of. laws which regulate the train of our thoughts. Hamilton so interprets that passage as to make Aristotle announce one generic law and three special ones. I am unwilling to set my authority against so accurate a scholar as Hamilton -- , but I have often looked into that passage, and can find no evidence of Aristotle having resolved all into one law. In the same note Hamilton had begun to expound his own theory, but broke off, and closed the book in the middle of a sentence. Most readers will feel that the account given in these lectures, though somewhat fuller, is far too brief, and illustrated by too few examples to be easily understood. His pupils could not be more profitably employed than in fully unfolding the doctrine of their master on this subject, and applying it to explain the well-known
He explains by these supposed unconscious acts a class of mental phenomena with which every one who has ever reflected on the operations of his own mind is familiar. The merchant walks in a brown study from his house to his place of business; there must have been many mental acts performed on the way, but they are now all gone. The question is, were they ever before the consciousness? Hamilton maintains that they never were; Dugald Stewart maintains that they were for the time, but that the mind cannot recall them. Notwithstanding all the acute remarks of Hamilton, I adhere to the theory of Stewart. I do so on the general principle that in devising a theory to explain a set of phenomena we should never call in a class of facts, of whose existence we have no other proof, when we can account for the whole by an order of facts known to exist on independent evidence. Hamilton says: "When suddenly awakened during sleep (and to ascertain the fact I have caused myself to be roused at different seasons of the {440} night), I have always been able to observe that I was in the middle of a dream;" but adds, "that he was often scarcely certain of more than the fact that he was not awakened from an unconscious state, and that we are often not able to recollect our dreams." He gives, as the peculiarity of somnambulism, that we have no recollection when we awake of what has occurred during its continuance. (Vol. I. P. 320-322.) Every one will admit that we are often conscious of states at the time, which we either cannot remember at all, or (what will equally serve our purpose) more probably cannot remember, except for a very brief period after we have experienced them. We have thus an established order of facts competent to explain the whole phenomenon without resorting to a Leibnitzian doctrine, which has been applied by certain later German pantheists to show how existence may rise gradually from deadness to life, and from unconsciousness to consciousness.
Under the head of the reproductive faculties he has two profound lectures on the Association of Ideas. In the close of his edition of Reid there is a learned disquisition on the well-known passage of Aristotle, in which he gives, with his usual brevity, a classification of. laws which regulate the train of our thoughts. Hamilton so interprets that passage as to make Aristotle announce one generic law and three special ones. I am unwilling to set my authority against so accurate a scholar as Hamilton -- , but I have often looked into that passage, and can find no evidence of Aristotle having resolved all into one law. In the same note Hamilton had begun to expound his own theory, but broke off, and closed the book in the middle of a sentence. Most readers will feel that the account given in these lectures, though somewhat fuller, is far too brief, and illustrated by too few examples to be easily understood. His pupils could not be more profitably employed than in fully unfolding the doctrine of their master on this subject, and applying it to explain the well-known