Relations between the Physical and the Moral. 235 



Spencer's Psychology. Pushing his analysis beyond the very limits 

 of consciousness to a final element, which is rather felt than seen, 

 he finds ' the unit of consciousness ' in what he terms a ' nervous 

 shock.' If we examine our various sensations, we shall see that 

 in spite of their specific differences they possess one thing in 

 common the nervous shock which constitutes the basis of them 

 all, and to which they all appear to be reducible. It is not possible to 

 say precisely wherein consists this ultimate element, though a few 

 examples may help us to form an approximate idea of it. Thus, 

 the effect produced in us by a crash which has no appreciable 

 duration is a nervous shock. An electrical discharge traversing 

 the body, and a flash of lightning striking the eye, resemble 

 a nervous shock. The state of consciousness thus produced is in 

 quality like that produced by a blow (leaving out of consideration 

 the consequent pain), so that this may be taken for the primitive 

 and typical form of a nervous shock. * It is possible may we 

 not even say probable ' writes Herbert Spencer, 'that some- 

 thing of the same order as that which we call nervous shock is 

 the ultimate unit of consciousness ; and that all the unlikelinesses 

 among our feelings result from unlike modes of integration of 

 the ultimate unit.' x 



We would observe, with the same author, that there is a perfect 

 agreement between this view and the well-known character of 

 nervous action. Experience shows that the nerve-current is inter- 

 mittent, that it consists of undulations. The external stimulus 

 does not act continuously on the sensitive centre, but sends up to 

 it, as it were, a series of pulsations, so that, objectively, this phe- 

 nomenon may be said to resemble what is subjectively called a 

 nervous shock. 



It does not seem possible, in the analysis of consciousness, to 

 push any farther the reduction of what we have called diversity, 

 for the nervous shock is hardly a state of consciousness. From 

 the synthesis of these shocks would come states of consciousness 

 properly so-called that is to say, sensations and sentiments ; and 

 then by syntheses of sensations and sentiments, and by associations 

 of images, ideas, and relations, is built the whole edifice of our 

 cognitions. 



1 Herbert Spencer, Psychology, ib. A 



