The Scottish Philosophy [42]
investigate " the various pleasures which human nature is capable of receiving," and our various internal senses, perceptions, and affections, specially the sense of beauty and the moral sense. Still he intimates very clearly what views he takes of man's intellectual nature. And first, as to the senses, he says, " It is not easy to divide distinctly our several sensations into classes. The division of our external senses into the five common classes seems very imperfect. Some sensations received without any previous idea, can either be reduced to none of them, such as the sensations of hunger, thirst, weariness, sickness; or, if we reduce them to the sense of feeling,, they are perceptions as different from the other ideas of touch, such as cold, heat, hardness, softness, as the ideas of taste or smell. Others have hinted at an external sense different from all of these. The following general account may possibly be useful: (1) That certain motions raised in our bodies are by a general law constituted the occasion of perceptions in the mind. (2) These perceptions never come alone, but have some other perceptions joined with them. Thus every sensation is accompanied with the idea of duration, and yet duration is not a sensible idea, since it also accompanies ideas of internal consciousness or reflection; so the idea of number may accompany any sensible ideas, and yet may also accompany any other ideas as well as external senses. Brutes, when several objects are before them, have probably all the proper ideas of sight which we have without the idea of number. (3) Some ideas are found accompanying the most different sensations, which yet are not to be perceived separately from some sensible quality, {70} such as extension, figure, motion, and rest, accompany the ideas of sight or colors, and yet may be perceived without them, as in the ideas of touch, at least if we move our organs along the parts of the body touched. Extension, figure, motion, or rest, seem therefore to be more properly called ideas accompanying the sensations of sight and touch than the sensations of either of these senses, since they can be received sometimes without the ideas of color, and sometimes without those of touching, though never without the one or other. The perceptions which are purely sensible, received each by its proper sense, are tastes, smells, colors, sound, cold, heat, &c. The universal concomitant ideas which may attend any idea whatsoever are duration and number. The ideas which accompany the most different sensations are extension, figure, motion, rest. These all arise without any previous ideas assembled or compared g, the concomitant ideas are reputed images of something external. From all these we may justly distinguish those pleasures perceived upon the previous reception and comparison of various sensible perceptions with their concomitant ideas, or intellectual ideas, when we find uniformity or resemblance among them. These are meant by the perceptions of the internal sense." ("Nature and Con duct of the Passions," Sect. I.)
This note comprises the result and the sum of much reading and much reflection. The principal thoughts, more especially as to the separation of the ideas of number and duration, and of extension, figure, motion, and rest from our common sensations, are taken, directly or indirectly, from Aristotle's " Psyche," B. II. c. vi. (which is not referred to, however), where there is a distinction drawn between common and proper percepts. But he seems to take a step beyond Aristotle when he tells us here, and still more expressly in his " Logic," that number and duration can be perceived both by the external and internal sense. It has been felt by all profound thinkers, that in order to account for the phenomena, and to save the senses from deceiving us, there must be distinctions of some sort drawn between different kinds of sensations or perceptions. Adopting the distinction of Aristotle, we find him in his " Logic " identifying it with that of Locke, between the primary and secondary qualities of bodies.
This note comprises the result and the sum of much reading and much reflection. The principal thoughts, more especially as to the separation of the ideas of number and duration, and of extension, figure, motion, and rest from our common sensations, are taken, directly or indirectly, from Aristotle's " Psyche," B. II. c. vi. (which is not referred to, however), where there is a distinction drawn between common and proper percepts. But he seems to take a step beyond Aristotle when he tells us here, and still more expressly in his " Logic," that number and duration can be perceived both by the external and internal sense. It has been felt by all profound thinkers, that in order to account for the phenomena, and to save the senses from deceiving us, there must be distinctions of some sort drawn between different kinds of sensations or perceptions. Adopting the distinction of Aristotle, we find him in his " Logic " identifying it with that of Locke, between the primary and secondary qualities of bodies.