McCOSH IN REPLY TO CARPENTER. 23 



ception, there is more than mere sensation considered as a feeling ; 

 there is knowledge of something extended. Then along with every 

 perception there is consciousness of self as perceiving. According to 

 the school of James Mill, sensation is a mere feeling, and ideation is 

 a reproduced sensation. Memories, imaginations, conceptions, are all 

 ideations ; nay, judgments and reasonings are only combined ideations. 

 The sense of duty is the product of association of ideations founded 

 on sensations of pleasure and pain. Dr. Carpenter proceeds, in fact, on 

 this psychology. But, to his credit, he draws back at a certain point. 

 He stands up resolutely for a self-determining will which he places 

 above both sensation and ideation. When asked for his proof, he ap- 

 peals very legitimately to a " conviction " felt by every mind. But a 

 like conviction certifies that there is vastly more than he sees in oper- 

 ations which he has passed over so lightly ; that in memory the idea 

 of time is involved, as every thing is remembered as happening in 

 time past; that in imagination there is a wonderful arranging power; 

 in conception, a grouping power ; and in judgment, the discovery of 

 relations such as those of identity, of quantity, and cause and effect, 

 all diving deep into the depth of things, while the conscience gives us 

 an entirely new idea, that of good and evil, and makes us feel that we 

 owe duties to God and our fellow-men. He who overlooks these at- 

 tributes may imagine that he can identify mental operations with 

 physiological ; but it is simply because he has not noticed the char- 

 acteristic attributes of the human mind. 



Dr. Carpenter did essential service to science, to religion, and I 

 may add to common-sense, by exposing the alleged evidence in behalf 

 of mesmerism ami table-turning. He showed that, in regard to these 

 phenomena, there were a " prepossession " and an " expectancy " which 

 led persons to believe and affirm, without any valid proof, that they 

 witnessed certain actions. I cannot see, however, that Dr. Carpenter 

 has here unfolded any new truth, or that he has explained the nature 

 of this " expectancy " certainly no light can be thrown upon it by 

 physiology. It is to be accounted for by purely mental causes, by a 

 hasty judgment into which people are led by the association of ideas, 

 guided by the wishes or feelings of the heart. If we have been accus- 

 tomed to see two things together, on one of them presenting itself we 

 are apt to look for the other, and believe that this other is present 

 when we have no valid proof. It is thus that, associating the standing 

 on a steep precipice with a fall, many tremble when placed there, even 

 though there be no real danger. It is thus we account for the appar- 

 ent deception of the senses. We rapidly infer that an object seen 

 across an arm of the sea or a level plain is near, following the rule, 

 usually correct, that an object is near when there are few visible 

 objects between us and it. It is thus that a countryman, seated, 

 and, as he feels, at rest, on a vessel leaving the quay, momentarily rea- 

 sons that the quay is moving, as he has found that when he is at rest 



