第35章

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.It may be doubted whether we can so {71} absolutely divide, as Aristotle and Hutcheson did, the accompanying ideas from the sensations or perceptions.The sensations and ideas are in every case wrapped up in one concrete cognitive act, while, however, the may come tip in a different t, y concretion in our next experience, and may be separated into elements by an analytic process.I rather think, too, that the perception of extension (as has been shown by Hamilton) is involved in all our sense-perceptions, for we seem to know our organism as in space and localized by every one of the senses.The language about the motions of bodies constituting the <occasion> of the perceptions in the mind, proceeds upon the inadequate distinction between efficient and occasional cause, drawn by the disciples of Descartes, -- a distinction adopted by Reid as well as Hutcheson.I suspect that it still remains true, that the common division of our external senses is very imperfect, and that it is not easy to arrange our sensations into classes.