34 



NAMES AND PROPOSITIONS. 



terious 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 in- 

 vestigation alone could have apprised 

 me of. These are states of my body : 

 but the sensation of blue, which 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 

 btates ; 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 feelings, 

 but in the agency which produces our 

 feelings : all of them when actually 

 produced are states of mind. 



Besides the affection of our bodily 

 organs from without, and the sensa- 

 tion thereby produced in our minds, 

 many writers admit a third link in 

 the chain of phenomena, which they 

 call a Perception, and which consists 

 in the recognition of an external 

 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 a sensation the mind is pas- 

 sive, being merely acted upon by the 

 outward object. And according to 

 some metaphysicians, it is by an act 

 of the mind, similar to perception, 

 except in not being preceded by any 

 sensation, that the existence of God, 

 the soul, and other hyperphysical 

 objects is recognised. 



These acts of what is termed per- 

 ception, whatever be the conclusion 

 xiltimately come to respecting their 

 nature, must, I conceive, take their 

 place among the varieties of feelings 

 or states of mind. In so classing 

 them, I have not the smallest inten- 

 tion of declaring or insinuating any 

 theory as to the law of mind in which 

 these mental processes may be sup- 



posed to originate, or the conditions 

 under which they may be legitimate 

 or the reverse. Far less do I mean 

 (as Dr. Whewell seems to suppose 

 must be meant in an analogous case*) 

 to indicate that as they are " merely 

 states of mind," it is superfluous to 

 inquire into their distinguishing pecu- 

 liarities. I abstain from the inquiry 

 as irrelevant to the science of logic. 

 In these so-called perceptions, or 

 direct recognitions by the mind, of 

 objects, whether physical or spiritual, 

 which are external to itself, I can see 

 only cases of belief ; but of belief 

 which claims to be intuitive, or inde- 

 pendent of external evidence. "When 

 a stone lies before me, I am conscious 

 of certain sensations which I receive 

 from it ; but if I say that these sen- 

 sations come to me from an external 

 object which I perceive, the meaning 

 of these words is, that receiving the 

 sensations, I intuitively believe that an 

 external cause of those sensations 

 exists. The laws of intuitive belief, 

 and the conditions under which it is 

 legitimate, are a subject which, as we 

 have already so often remarked, be- 

 longs not t'> logic, but to the science of 

 the ultimate laws of the human mind. 

 To the same region of speculation 

 belongs all that can be said respecting 

 the distinction which the German 

 metaphysicians and their French and 

 English followers so elaborately draw 

 between the acts of the mind and its 

 merely passive states; between what 

 it receives from, and what it gives to, 

 the crude materials of its experience. 

 I am aware that with reference to the 

 view which those writers take of the 

 primary elements of thought and 

 knowledge, this distinction is funda- 

 mental. But for the present purpose, 

 which is to examine, not the original 

 groundwork of our knowledge, but 

 how we come by that portion of it 

 which is not original ; the difference 

 between active and passive states of 

 mind is of secondary importance. 

 For us, they all are states of mindj 



* Philosophy 0/ the Jndwtive Sciences, 

 voL i. p. 40. 



