rniNGS DENOTED BY NAMES, 35 



uses of life, has provided us with no single-worded or immediate desig- 

 nation ; we nmst employ a circumlocution, and say, The sensation of 

 white, or The sensation of whiteness; we must denominate the sensation 

 either from the oliject, or from the attribute, by which it is excited. 

 Yet the sensation, though it never docs, might very well be conceioed to 

 exist, without anything whatever to excite it. We can conceive it as 

 arising spontaneously in the mind. But if it so arose, we should have 

 no name to denote it which would not be a misnomer. In the case of 

 our sensations of hearing we are better provided ; we have the word 

 Sound, and a whole vocabulary of words to denote the various kinds 

 of sounds. For as we a,re often conscious of these sensations in the 

 absence of any j^cfcejftible object, we can more easily conceive having 

 them in the absence of any object whatever. We need only shut our 

 eyes and listen to music, to have a conception of a universe with 

 nothing in it except sounds, and ourselves hearing them ; and what is 

 easily conceived separately, easily obtains a separate name. But in 

 general our names of sensations denote indiscriminately the sensation 

 and the attribute. Thus, color stands for the sensations of white, red, 

 &c., but also for the quality in the colored object. We talk of the 

 colors of things as among their properties. 



§ 4. In the case of sensations, another distinction has also to be kept 

 in view, which is often confounded, and never without mischievous 

 consequences. This is, the distinction between the sensation itself, 

 and the state of the bodily organs which precedes the sensation, and 

 which constitutes the physical agency by which it is produced. One 

 of the sources of confusion on this subject is the division commonly 

 made of feelings into Bodily and Mental. Philosophically speaking, 

 there is no foundation at all for this distinction : even sensations are 

 states of the sentient mind, not states of the body, as distinguished 

 from it. What I am conscious of when I see the color blue, is a feel- 

 ing of blue color, which is one thing ; the picture on my retina, or the 

 phenomenon of hitherto mysterious nature which takes place in my 

 optic nerve or in my brain, is another thing, of which I am not at all 

 conscious, and which scientific investigation alone could have apprised 

 me of. These are states of my body ; but the sensation of blue, M'hich 

 is the consequence of these states of body, is not a state of body ; that 

 which perceives and is conscious is called Mind. When sensations 

 are called bodily feelings, it is only as being the class of feelings which 

 are immediately occasioned by bodily states ; whereas the other kinds 

 of feelings, thoughts, for instance, or emotions, are immediately excited 

 not by anything acting upon the bodily organs, but by sensations, or 

 by previous thoughts. This, however, is a distinction not in our feel- 

 ings, but in the agency which produces our feelings ; all of them when 

 actually pi-oduced are states of mind. 



Besides the affection of our bodily organs from without, and the 

 sensation thereby produced in our minds, many waiters admit a third 

 link in the chain of phenomena, which they term a Perception, and 

 which consists in the recognition of an cxtei-nal object as the exciting 

 cause of the sensation. This perception, they say, is an act of the 

 mind, proceeding from its own spontaneous activity, while in sensation 

 the mind is passive, being merely acted upon by the outward object. 

 And according to some philosophers it is by an act of the mind, similar 



