Part 5 (1/2)
But what he meant by ”_instrumenta reruraress of the e Children first express their feelings by estures of the body, by cries and tears _This is_[31] the language of nature, and therefore universal _It fitly represents_[32] the quickness of sentiht, which are as instantaneous as the iht on the eye Hence ays express our stronger feelings by these natural signs But ant to make known to others the particular conceptions of the mind, we must represent them by parts, we must divide and analyze thens_,[33]
and join these together, according to the order of their relations Thus words are _both the instruht”--_Preface to Latin Grans of any sort, requires tiested by Dr Ada retained or recalled, naturally flash upon the inate in soe The Doctor does not affirht, but of _the division_ of thought But it is manifest, that if they effect this, they are not the only instru h uninstructed and utterly ignorant of language, can think; and can, by rude signs of their own inventing,to the individuality of things And what else can be ht_,” than our notion of objects, as existing severally, or as being distinguishable into parts? There can, I think, be no such division respecting that which is perfectly pure and indivisible in its essence; and, I would ask, is not simple continuity apt to exclude it fro which appears with uniform coherence? Dr Beattie says, ”It appears to hts must be so too”--_Moral Science_, Chap, i, Sec 1 If, then, our thoughts are thus divided, and consequently, as this author infers, have not in thenification of common nouns, there is little need of any instrument to divide theests, ”to coe is a work of art, and not a thing conferred or imposed upon us by nature, there surely can be in it neither division nor union that was not first in the intellect for the eneralization ”The huy as spontaneous and fa of colour is familiar to the eye, discerns at once what in s dissimilar and different is similar and the same”--_Hermes_, p 362 Secondly, with respect to division Mechanical separations are limited: ”But the mind surmounts all power of concretion; and can place in the simplest manner every attribute by itself; convex without concave; colour without superficies; superficies without body; and body without its accidents: as distinctly each one, as though they had never been united And thus it is, that it penetrates into the recesses of all things, not only dividing the till it even separate those eleether after a more mysterious htiest whole”--_Harris's Hermes_, p 307
9 It is remarkable that this philosopher, who had so sublime conceptions of the powers of the human mind, and who has displayed such extraordinary acuteness in his investigations, has represented the for in speed the progress of our very thoughts; while, as we have seen, an other author, of great naht is ”as instantaneous as the iht on the eye”
Philosophy here too evidently nods In showing the advantage of words, as compared with pictures, Harris says, ”If we consider the ease and speed hich words are forue, and a _speed which equals the progress of our very thoughts_,[38]--we may plainly perceive an answer to the question here proposed, Why, in the common intercourse of men with men, imitations have been rejected, and symbols preferred”--_Hermes_, p 336 Let us hear a third ed_; and they well deserve that naress which speech could make without these inventions; but, coht, they have not _the smallest claim to that title_ Philosophers have calculated the difference of velocity between sound and light; but ill atteht!”--_Horne Tooke's Epea Pteroenta_, Vol i, p 23
10 It is certain, that, in the admirable economy of the creation, natures subordinate are made, in a wonderful her; and that, accordingly, our first ideas are such as are conceived of things external and sensible Hence all men whose intellect appeals only to external sense, are prone to a philosophy which reverses the order of things pertaining to the mind, and tends to ain to Harris--”the intellectual sche corporeal to the priin of intelligible ideas, even of those which exist in huh sensible objects ies of ies themselves no more contained, in sense, than the explosion of a cannon, in the spark which gave it fire In short, all enial; and so too are their ideas, or intelligible forms Were it otherwise, there could be no intercourse between man and man, or (what is more important) between man and God”--_Hermes_, p 393
11 A doctrine somewhat like this, is found in the Meditations of the enant to the polytheised: ”The world, take it all together, is but one; there is but one sort of uide it For, run through the whole systes, and you will find reason and truth but single and the sas of the same kind, and endued with the same reason, are made happy by the saain: ”Let your soul receive the Deity as your blood does the air; for the influences of the one are no less vital, than those of the other This correspondence is very practicable: for there is an ambient omnipresent Spirit, which lies as open and pervious to your s: but then you must remember to be disposed to draw it”--Book viii, Sec 54; _Collier's Translation_
12 Agreeably to these views, except that he makes a distinction between a natural and a supernatural idea of God, we find Barclay, the early defender of the Quakers, in an argu thus: ”If the Scripture then be true, there is in ether differs from this natural idea--I say, in all men; because allthis divine vision Now this capacity consisteth herein, that they have such a supernatural idea in themselves[39] For if there were no such idea in them, it were impossible they should so know God; for whatsoever is clearly and distinctly known, is known by its proper idea; neither can it otherwise be clearly and distinctly known _For the ideas of all things are divinely planted in our souls_; for, as the better philosophy teacheth, they are not begotten in us by outward objects or outward causes, but only are by these outward things excited or stirred up
And this is true, not only in supernatural ideas of God and things divine, and in natural ideas of the natural principles of hu, and conclusions thence deduced by the strength of human reason; but even in the ideas of outward objects, which are perceived by the outward senses: as that noble Christian philosopher Boethius hath well observed; to which also the Cartesian philosophy agreeth” I quote only to show the concurrence of others, with Harris's position Barclay carries on his argument with much more of a similar import See _Sewell's History_, folio, p 620
13 But the doctrine of ideas existing pri divinely planted in our souls, did not originate with Boethius: it h the philosophy of Proclus, Zeno, Aristotle,[40] Plato, Socrates, Paroras It is absurd to suppose any production or effect to be more excellent than its cause That which really produces motion, cannot itself be inert; and that which actually causes the human ence ”For knowledge can alone produce knowledge” [41] A doctrine apparently at variance with this, has recently been taught, with great confidence, ay_ How much truth there may be in this new ”_science_,” as it is called, I am not prepared to say; but, as sometimes held forth, it seems to me not only to clash with some of the most important principles of ht the result of that which is in itself inert and unthinking assu have not been known in earlier tianization of the brain, their proper source, or essential condition, and the true index to theirphrenologists, by acknowledging no spiritual substance, virtually deny that ancient doctrine, ”It is not in flesh to think, or bones to reason,” [42] and make the mind either a
14 ”The doctrine of _immaterial substances_,” says Dr Spurzheim, ”is not sufficiently amenable to the test of observation; it is founded on belief, and only supported by hypothesis”--_Phrenology_, Vol i, p 20 But it should be remembered, that our notion of material substance, is just as much a matter of hypothesis All accidents, whether they be qualities or actions, we necessarily suppose to have so the term from the Latin, or _hypostasis_, if we choose to borrow from the Greek But what this substance, or hypostasis, is, independently of its qualities or actions, we know not This is clearly proved by Locke What do we mean by _matter_? and what by _mind_? _Matter_ is that which is solid, extended, divisible, movable, and occupies space
_Mind_ is that which thinks, and wills, and reasons, and remembers, and worshi+ps Here are qualities in the one case; operations in the other Here are two definitions as totally distinct as any two can be; and he that sees not in them a difference of _substance_, sees it nowhere: to him all natures are one; and that one, an absurd supposition
15 In favour of what is urged by the phrenologists, it may perhaps be admitted, as a natural law, that, ”If a picture of a visible object be formed upon the retina, and the impression be communicated, by the nerves, to the brain, the _result_ will be an act of perception”--_Wayland's Moral Science_, p 4 But it does not follow, nor did the writer of this sentence believe, that perception is a anized matter of the brain A ans a corporeal ht or perception; and upon what principle of causation, shall awhich he sees, is more properly the cause of the idea conceived of it, than is the light by which he beholds it, or the mind in which that idea is formed? Lord Kames avers, that, ”Colour, which appears to the eye as spread upon a substance, has no existence but in the mind of the spectator”--_Elements of Criticism_, i, 178 And Cicero placed the perception, not only of colour, but of taste, of sound, of smell, and of touch, in the mind, rather than in the senses ”Illud est album, hoc dulce, canorum illud, hoc bene olens, hoc asperum: animo jam haec tenemus comprehensa, non sensibus”--_Ciceronis Acad_ Lib ii, 7 Dr Beattie, however, says: ”Colours inhere not in the coloured body, but in the light that falls upon it;and the word _colour_ denotes, an external thing, and never a sensation of the mind”--_Moral Science_, i, 54 Here is so ument; which is, that to perceive or think is an act or attribute of our immaterial substance or nature, and not to be supposed the effect either of the objects perceived or of our own corporeal organization
16 Divine wisdoh which our minds shall receive notices of the fors; but the sublime conception of the ancients, that these forms and qualities had an abstract preexistence in the divine lish authors, as Milton, Cowper, Akenside, and others
For example: ”Now if _Ens primum_ be the cause of _entia a primo_, then he hath the idea of them in him: for he made them by counsel, and not by necessity; for then he should have needed them, and they have a parhelion of that wisdoic_, p 16: Lond
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”Then the Great Spirit, whom his works adore, Within his own deep essence view'd the fors”--AKENSIDE
_Pleasures of the Iination_, Book i
”And in the school of sacred wisdoht the world, Fair as it is, existed ere it was”--COWPER
_Task: Winter Morning Walk_, p 150
”Thence to behold this new-created world, The addition of his eood, how fair, Answering his great idea”--MILTON
_Paradise Lost_, Book vii, line 554
”Thought shi+nes froht is born”
ANON: _a Poeinal Truth,” [43] says Harris, ”having the ence_, eable splendor, enlightening throughout the universe every possible subject, by nature susceptible of its benign influence
Passions and other obstacles may prevent indeed its efficacy, as clouds and vapours may obscure the sun; but itself neither ade, because the darkness respects only particular percipients Anorance and error, and for that _subordination of intelligence_ which is their natural consequence Partial views, the imperfections of sense; inattention, idleness, the turbulence of passions; education, local sentiments, opinions, and belief; conspire in many instances to furnish us with ideas, some too partial, and (what is worse than all this) with many that are erroneous, and contrary to truth
These it behoves us to correct as far as possible, by cool suspense and candid examination Thus by a connection perhaps little expected, the cause of _Letters_, and that of _Virtue_, appear to coincide; it being the business of both, to examine our ideas, and to amend them by the standard of nature and of truth”--See _Herh it seems plain from our own consciousness, that theprinciple or essence, yet capable of being moved, after its own h it must be obvious to reflection, that all its ideas, perceptions, and emotions, are, with respect to itself, of a spiritual nature--bearing such a relation to the spiritual substance in which alone they appear, as bodily motion is seen to bear to material substances; yet we know, from experience and observation, that they who are acquainted ords, are apt to think in words--that is, mentally to associate their internal conceptions with the verbal signs which they have learned to use And though I do not conceive the position to be generally true, that words are to the ht, yet, in my apprehension, it cannot well be denied, that in soreatly assisted by its own contrivances with respect to language I refer not now to the coe is admitted to be properly the instruht, or calculation, in which the mind, by a wonderful artifice in the combination of terms, contrives to prevent embarrassment, and help itself forward in its conceptions, when the objects before it are in themselves perhaps infinite in number or variety
19 We have an instance of this in numeration No idea is more obvious or simple than that of unity, or one By the continual addition of this, first to itself to her combination successively, we foro on to infinity In the consideration of these, the o tar without the help of words, and those peculiarly fitted to the purpose The understanding would lose itself in the multiplicity, were it not aided by that curious concatenation of names, which has been contrived for the several parts of the succession As far as _twelve_ we make use of simple unrelated terms Thencefore apply derivatives and coular order, till we arrive at a _hundred_ This one neord, _hundred_, introduced to prevent confusion, has nine hundred and ninety-nine distinct repetitions in connexion with the preceding ters us to a _thousand_ Here the coh all the former combinations, and then extends forward, till the word _thousand_ has been used nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand times; and then, for ten hundred thousand, we introduce the neord _ain as before, and proceed till we have used it aa nuuished froin and proceed, with _billions, trillions, quadrillions, quintillions, etc_, to any extent we please