CH. I.] 



NATURE OF IMPRESSIONS. 



219 



for they at least, can neither conceive nor perceive, if we grant 

 khat the brain can ; nor can sensation [das Empfinden] be con- 

 nived to be a property of the nerves, by those who maintain 

 fchat the brain is the soul. From the point of impression at 

 the termination of the nerves to their origin in the brain, the 

 external impression (external feeling) is nothing more than a 

 ddden movement in the nerve, which, at the point where it 

 forms a material idea, is only first perceived, conceived, felt, 

 )bserved by the soul (80). If, therefore, the materialist main- 

 lins, that it is the materies (Stoff) of external sensation, still 

 it does not become an external sensation until it enters this 

 )oint of sensation [Fiihlpunkt] in the brain ; and it cannot be 

 [antecedently to this, while in the trunk of the nerve from whence 

 puts the animal machines which it can regulate into motion, 

 [either an external sensation or sentient moving force ; but is a 

 [pure vis nervosa [eine blosse Nervenkraft] , and all its operations 

 :e purely nerve-actions and not sentient actions from external 

 sensation (98, i). 



405. The distinction between internal impressions with con- 

 sciousness and without, is equally as great as that between an 

 external impression and external sensation. The conceptional 

 internal impression, which operates in the mechanical machines, 

 is a material idea at the point of origin of a nerve in the 

 brain, where the mind felt in virtue of its self-consciousness 

 [Selbstgefiihl] ; (80) and so soon as this hidden movement at 

 the origin of the nerve (the material idea) passes onward from this 

 [point of consciousness [Fiihlpunkt der Seele] over to the nerves, 

 [to the end that they may put the mechanical machines into 

 motion, the internal impression becomes nothing more than 

 what the external impression is before it enters the point of 

 consciousness in the brain ; it is therefore neither a sensation 

 nor conception, but a hidden movement in the nerve, which 

 continues downwards from the brain towards the terminations 

 of the nerves, and puts the mechanical machines into motion 

 to which they are distributed. In so far as a conception was 

 the basis of this animal movement, and in so far as the impres- 

 sions passed from the brain downwards from the point of con- 

 sciousness, at which the mind perceived the conception of this 

 material idea, to that extent the movement is a sentient action 

 (97) ; and the internal impression (the material idea) is an 



