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3. Hence, every question relating to a future state must be solved from the nature of the soul, from the state of the fact at death, or from the principles of religion.

100. The operation of consciousness is accompanied with an irresistible belief of the real existence of those objects of which it gives us information.

Пlus. The belief which we entertain in the existence of our own minds, and of their various faculties, rests upon this evidence alone; and it is by means of it, that we acquire our most accurate knowledge of the laws by which these faculties are regulated. Nor can the belief accompanying consciousness be resolved into any process of reasoning, or any other intellectual operation; for if we are asked, Why we believe that we have a soul, and that soul has faculties or active powers, which may all be exerted together, or in the least measurable portion of time? we shall be unable to give any better reason, than that we feel such to be the case; that is, in more accurate language, that we are conscious of it.

101. No man can divine the mysterious union of soul and body, but every man feels that his mind is present, in a particular manner, to whatever affects his senses; and, in other instances, that it is equally present to the most remote, as to the nearest object of thought.

Corol. Thus we may consider the evidence of consciousness as one of those intuitive truths most universally admitted.

CHAPTER II.

OF SENSATION.

102. SENSATION has been defined the faculty by which we experience pleasing or painful effects from various objects, through the medium of the senses.

Obs. The senses come to maturity even in infancy, when other powers have not yet sprung up. They are common to us with brute animals, and furnish us with the objects about which our other pow ers are most frequently employed. We find it easy to attend to their operations; and because they are familiar, the names which properly belong to them, are applied to other powers that are thought to resemble them; for these reasons they claim our attention in an analysis of the faculty of sensation, which naturally demands to be first considered among the objects of our conscious

ness.

103. The media by which all sensation is communicated to the mind, are the five senses of seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, and touch.

104. Of these senses, sight is, without doubt, the noblest. The variety of information and of enjoyment that we receive by it, the rapidity with which this information and enjoyment are conveyed to us; and, above all, the intercourse which it enables us to maintain with the more distant parts of the universe, as for example, with the planets and their satellites, cannot fail to give it, even in the apprehension of the most careless observer, a pre-eminence over all our other perceptive faculties.

105. The sense of smelling informs us of certain qualities or virtues in bodies, which we call their smell; and we shall therefore consider the term smell as signifying a sensation, a feeling, or an impression upon the mind; and which can only be in a mind, or sentient being.

Illus. 1. The sensation produced by this sense can have no existence but when something that emits an odour is smelled. It therefore appears to be a simple and original affection or feeling of the mind, altogether inexplicable and unaccountable. It is indeed impossible that it can be body, nor can we ascribe to it figure, colour, extension, or any other quality of a body: it is a sensation, and a sensation can only be in a sentient being.

2. The various odours have each their different degrees of strength and weakness. Most of them are agreeable or disagreeable; and frequently those that are agreeable when weak, are disagreeable when stronger. We can compare different smells together; we can perceive very few resemblances or contrarieties, or indeed relations of any kind between them. They are all simple in themselves, and so different from each other, that it is hardly possible to divide them into genera and species. Most of the names that we give them are particular; as, the smell of a jessamine, of a rose, and the like. Yet there are some general names; as sweet, stinking, musty, putrid, cadaverous, aromatic. Some of them seem to refresh and animate the mind, others to deaden and depress it.

3. But the power, quality, or virtue, in the rose, or in the effluvia proceeding from it, hath a permanent existence, independent of the mind, and which by the constitution of our nature produces the sensation in us. By the original constitution of our nature, we are both led to believe, that there is a permanent cause of the sen sation, and, prompted to seek after it, experience determines us to place it in the rose.

106. The relation which the sensation of smell bears to the memory and imagination of it, and to a mind or subject, is common to all our sensations, and indeed to all the operations of the mind: the relation it bears to the will, is common to it with all the powers of the understanding: and the relation it bears to that quality or virtue of bodies which it indicates, is common to it with the sensations of

taste, hearing, colour, heat, cold: so that what hath been said of this sense, may easily be applied to several of our senses, and other operations of the mind.

Obs. 1. But in what manner the organs of our corporeal frame contribute to excite the various sensations which we are capable of experiencing, or how the communication between material objects and our immaterial thinking principle, is carried on, are questions which have hitherto eluded the ingenuity of inquisitive men.

2. Anatomists have carefully analysed the various organs of sense, as well as the structure of the nerves and brain; and are able to shew us that, in all the senses, the peculiar impressions seem to be communicated to the nerves; and as all the nerves terminate in the brain, the impressions are, probably, conveyed thither finally. Here all our inquiries must terminate. (See Illus. Art. 67. and Illus. Art. 70.)

107. When sensation is excited in the mind, it is generally in consequence of some impression first made upon the corporeal senses. But, in some instances, the cause originates in the mind, (as is evident from the thrilling sensation which accompanies certain affections of mind,) and is thence communicated to the bodily organs, while apparently an effect is produced precisely similar to that of the more usual kind of sensation.

Illus. It is well known, that the mere thought of pain, in any particular part of the body, is sufficient to excite the corresponding sensation in a certain degree. Thus, the idea of sore eyes produces a certain degree of pain in those organs; and the strong imagination of any particular taste or flavour, is accompanied with a slight sensation of that taste or flavour.

108. We have already noticed the difference between sensation and perception (Art. 42); and it is obvious, that to speak intelligibly and scientifically, we should say, "the sensation of hunger, of fear, of joy," and "the perception of extension, figure, magnitude," and the like.

109. Many affections of the mind are accompanied with strong sensations, either pleasant or painful.

Illus. 1. Anger, terror, envy, revenge, and all the malevolent passions, have a very powerful effect upon the bodily frame, and excite sensations which are of a very disagreeable kind. Upon the other hand, joy, admiration, love, and all the amiable emotions, produce sensations which are decidedly pleasurable.

2. Such sensations are frequently, in common language, called feelings; a name, however, which more properly belongs to the pleasurable effect of our benevolent affections, and moral judgments, as well as to the pleasure accompanying our approbation in matters of taste. (Obs. Art. 42.)

110. These feelings appear to be almost purely of an intellectual nature; while the term sensation, as we wish to limit it, includes a distinct affection of the body, as well as of the mind.

Illus. Thus, the sensation produced by the smell of a rose is a certain affection or feeling of the mind. What is the smell of the rose? It is a quality or virtue of the rose, of something proceeding from it, which we perceive by the sense of smelling; and this is all we know of the matter. But what is smelling? It is an act of the mind, but is never imagined to be a quality of the mind. (Illus. Art. 39.)

Corol. Therefore smell in the rose, and the sensation caused by it, are not conceived to be things of the same kind, although they have the same name.

111. According to the views now brought forward and illustrated, our sensations may be divided into those which arise from the operation of material objects upon the five senses; those which accompany our appetites, as hunger, thirst, and the like; and those which arise from the action the passions, and stronger emotions.

Obs. These last are by far the most numerous of the three kinds; but so little attention is paid to them, that they have no names, and are immediately forgotten, as if they had never been; so that it requires a considerable degree of attention to the operations of our minds, to be convinced of their existence. (See Illus. Art. 93.)

112. The Author of Nature, in the distribution of agreeable and painful feelings, hath wisely and benevolently consulted the good of the human species, and hath even shewn us, by the same means, what tenor of conduct we ought to hold.

Illus. For, first, the painful sensations of the animal kind, are admonitions to avoid what would hurt us; and the agreeable sensations of the same kind, invite us to those actions that are necessary to the preservation of the individual or of the species.

Secondly. By the same means nature invites us to moderate our bodily exercise, and admonishes us to avoid idleness and inactivity on the one hand, and excessive labour and fatigue on the other. Thirdly. The moderate exercise of all our rational powers gives pleasure.

Fourthly. Every species of beauty is beheld with pleasure, and every species of deformity with disgust; and we shall find all that we call beautiful, to be something estimable or useful in itself, or a sign of something that is estimable or useful.

Fifthly. The benevolent affections are all accompanied with an agreeable feeling, the malevolent with the contrary.

And, Sixthly. The highest, the noblest, and most durable pleasure, is that of doing well, and acting the part that becomes us; and the most bitter and painful sensation, the anguish and remorse of a guilty conscience.

Note. The faculty of sensation receives additional illustration in Chapter 1st, Book III. under the investigation of the "primary and secondary qualities of bodies."

CHAPTER III.

OF PERCEPTION.

113. PERCEPTION we explained to be the faculty by which we are informed of the properties of external objects, in consequence of the impressions which they make on the organs of sense; and the distinction between it and conception, consciousness, remembrance, and sensation, was sufficiently illustrated under Articles 22, 23, and 24.

Obs. The corporeal organs of sense are subservient to the operation of the faculty of perception, as well as of sensation, which generally accompanies it. Yet it is not unreasonable to suppose, that these organs rather limit and circumscribe this intellectual faculty, than that they are essential to its operation; and that beings of a superior order, uncircumscribed by bodily organs like ours, may enjoy perception in a much more perfect degree than we do. A person who had been all his life shut up in a chamber with a single window, would naturally conceive that window to be essential to his sight, instead of being the cause of his very limited view. (See Obs. 3. Art. 6.)

114. When we attend to that act of our mind which we call the perception of an external object, we shall find in it these three things:

First. Some conception or notion of the object perceived, (Illus. 1. Art. 22.)

Secondly. A strong and irresistible conviction and belief of its present existence, (Illus. 2. Art. 22.)

Thirdly. That this conviction and belief are immediate, and not the effect of reasoning, (Illus. 3. Art. 22.)

115. First. It is impossible to perceive an object without some notion or conception of that which we perceive. We

e may indeed conceive an object which we do not perceive; but when we perceive the object we must, at the same time, have some conception of it; and we have commonly a more clear and steady notion of the object while we perceive it, than we have from memory or imagination, when it is not perceived. Yet, even in perception, the notion which our senses give of the object may be more or less clear, more or less distinct, in all possible degrees.

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