140 



HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE. 



[chap. 



its con- 

 sciousness 

 would be 

 developed 

 in both 

 time and 

 space. 



Illustra- 

 tion. 



this would be, that its consciousness would be developed 

 in both space and time, just as our consciousness is deve- 

 loped in time only. All oiir sensations have position in 

 time, but only some of them have position in space. The 

 sensations of hearing — which, as we have seen, is the sense 

 which is the most intimately connected with thought — are 

 not primarily in any way related to space ; and consequently 

 o^ir consciousness is developed in time, and we think in 

 time, but we do not think in space, and space appears to 

 our consciousness to be somehow outside of it. But in 

 the supposed case of a being which is u.nable to have, and 

 consequently unable to conceive of, any sensations except 

 such as have position in space, the mind would be deve- 

 loped in space as well as in time. It would think both in 

 time and in space. Space would be as inseparable from its 

 thouglits as time is from ours, and would not appear to be 

 in any way outside of its consciousness. The relation of its 

 consciousness to space would be no more perplexing to it 

 than the relation of our consciousness to time is to us. 

 Indeed, the development of its consciousness in space 

 would be a simpler fact than the development of its 

 consciousness, or of our consciousness, in time ; because, 

 as we have seen, consciousness cannot be developed in 

 time without at least a rudimentary memory, so as to 

 cognise the difference between present sensations and 

 past ones : but nothing simUar to this is needed in order 

 to cognise either the relations of likeness and unlike- 

 ness, or the space-relation. Our consciousness may be 

 called a series of feelings strung together on a thread 

 of time ; ^ but the consciousness of such a being as' we 

 are supposing — a consciousness into which space enters as 

 inseparably as time — might rather be called a series of 

 feelings woven, as a pattern, into a web whereof the warp 

 is time and the woof is space. 



If it is asked what I mean by thinkiag in space ? — how is 



I 



1 But, as Mill has remarked, if the mind is a series of feelings, it is a 

 series which is aware of itself as a series. I agree with Dr. M'Cosh that 

 this is an inadequate statement, but I doubt whether Mill means it as an 

 exhaustive one. 



