19 



As is clearly pointed out by Douglas, 1 the adoption by 

 Mill of this psychological basis implies "the complete and 

 direct subjugation of the mental process to the course of ex- 

 ternal events. It means that consciousness is essentially 

 passive, and merely receives and reproduces impressions from 

 the outer world, that the order and connection of our ideas, 

 no less than the elements which make up their complexity, 

 come entirely from without. Such a view is not merely im- 

 plied, but is even explicitly advanced by Mill. He says that 

 ' the conceptions * * * which we employ from the colligation 

 and methodisation of facts, do not develop themselves from 

 within, but are impressed upon the mind from without', 2 and 

 that ' the conception is not furnished by the mind until it has 

 been furnished to the mind, and the facts which supply it are 

 sometimes extraneous facts, but more often the very facts 

 which we are attempting to arrange by it'." 3 



This close dependence of mental upon physiological 

 phenomena makes itself further manifest as the fundamental 

 psychological basis of Mill's Utilitarianism, wherein it is 

 claimed that all our actions are governed by two factors, 

 pleasure and pain, which are in turn definitely related to the 

 functioning of the physiological organism. In other words, 

 in their last analysis, all pleasures and pains are sensuous, 

 although in their highly developed form it may be true that 

 they show little or no mark of this origin. 



10. ALEXANDER BAIN. 



If we now turn to Bain, we shall find a practical agreement 

 with the fundamental position outlined above. "Conceiving 

 that the time has come, " he says, "when many of the striking 

 discoveries of physiologists relative to the nervous system 

 should find a recognized place in the science of mind, I have 

 devoted a separate chapter to the physiology of the brain and 

 nerves." 4 In this statement Bain apparently manifests a 

 more willing tendency than J. S. Mill to bring^ psychological 

 phenomena "under the province of Physiology". 



For Bain, the laws of association are contiguity and simi- 

 larity. 5 We get our ideas one by one through the various 



'Charles Douglas, "John Stuart Mill", Wm. Blackwood & Sons, 1895, 



2 J. S. Mill, "Logic", Original Peoples' Editions, Longmans, Green & Co., 

 p. 427. 



Alexander Bain, "The Senses and the Intellect", 3rd ed. 1868, Preface 

 to 1st ed., and Ch. 2. 



K).C. "Intellect", Chs. 1 and 2. 



