Opinion of Mr. Stewart.—Mr. Stewart, in accordance with the view already expressed of the rapidity of the mind's action, maintains that we do not under any circumstances attend at one and the same time to two objects of thought, but that the mind passes with such rapidity from one to another object in the cases supposed, that we are unconscious of the transition, and seem to ourselves to be attending to both objects at once.
Illustration of this View.—An illustration of this we find in the case of vision. Only one point of the surface of any external object is at any one instant in the direct line of vision, yet so rapidly does the eye pass from point to point, that we seem to perceive at a glance the whole surface.
How it is possible to compare different Objects.—It may be asked, How is it that we are able to compare one object with another, if we are unable to bring both before the mind at once? If, while I am thinking of A, I have no longer any thought whatever of B, how is it possible ever to bring together A and B before the mind so as to compare them?
The answer I conceive to be this, that the mind passes with such rapidity from the one to the other object, as to produce the same effect that would be produced were both objects actually before it at the same instant. The transition is not usually a matter of consciousness; yet if any one will observe closely the action of his own mind in the exercise of comparison, he will detect the passing of his thoughts back and forth from one object to the other many times before the conclusion is reached, and the comparison is complete.
CHAPTER III.
CONCEPTION.
Character of this Power.—This term has been employed in various senses by different writers. It does not denote properly a distinct faculty of the mind. I conceive of a thing when I make it a distinct object of thought, when I apprehend it, when I construe it to myself as a possible thing, and as being thus and thus. This form of mental activity enters more or less into all our mental operations; it is involved in perception, memory, imagination, abstraction, judgment, reasoning, etc. For this reason it is not to be ranked as one of, and correlate with, these several specific faculties. Like the power of thought, and hardly even more limited than that, it underlies all the special faculties, and is essential to them all. Such at least is the ordinary acceptation of the term; and when we employ it to denote some specific form of mental activity, we employ it in a sense aside from its usual and established meaning.
Objects of Conception.—I conceive of an absent object of sight, as, e. g., the appearance of an absent friend, or of a foreign city, of the march of an army, or the eruption of a volcano. I conceive also of a mathematical truth, or a problem in astronomy. My conceptions are not limited to former perceptions or sensations, nor even to objects of sensible perception. They are not limited to material and sensible objects. They embrace the past and the future, the actual and the ideal, the sensible and the super-sensible.
Conceptions neither true nor false.—Our conceptions are neither true nor false, in themselves considered; they become so only when attended with some exercise of judgment or of belief. We conceive of a mountain of gold or of glass, and this simple conception has nothing to do with truth or error. When we conceive of it, however, as actually existing, and in this or that place, or when we simply judge that such a mountain is somewhere to be found, then such judgment or belief is either true or false; but it is no longer simple conception.
Not always Possibilities; nor possible Things always conceivable.—Our conceptions are not always possibilities. We can conceive of some things not within the limits of possibility. On the other hand, not every thing possible even is conceivable. Existence without beginning or end is possible, but it is not in the power of the human mind, strictly speaking, to conceive of such a thing. I know that Deity thus exists. I understand what is meant by such a proposition, and I believe it. But I cannot construe it to myself as a definite intellection, an apprehension, as I can conceive of the existence of a city or a continent, or of the truth of a mathematical proposition.
The same may be said of the ideas of the infinite and the absolute. They are not properly within the limits of thought, of apprehension, to the human mind. Thought in its very nature imposes a limitation on the object which is thought of—fathoms it—passes around it with its measuring line—apprehends it: only so far as this is done is the thing actually thought; only so far as it can be done is the thing really thinkable. But the infinite, the unconditioned, the absolute, in their very nature unlimited, cannot be shut up thus within the narrow lines of human thought. They are inconceivable. They are not, however, contradictory to thought. They may be true; they are true and real, though we cannot properly conceive them.
The Inconceivable becomes Impossible, when.—Not every thing then which is inconceivable is impossible, nor, on the other hand, is every thing which is impossible inconceivable. The inconceivable is impossible, at least it can be known to be so, only when it is either self-contradictory—as that a thing should be and not be at the same time—that a part is equal to the whole, etc.; or when it is contradictory of the laws of thought, as that two straight lines should enclose a space—that an event may occur without a cause—that space is not necessary to the existence of matter, or time to the succession of events. These things are unthinkable but they are more than that, contradictory of the established laws of thought; and they are impossible, because thus contradictory, and not merely because inconceivable. It is hardly true, as is sometimes affirmed, and as Dr. Wayland has stated, that our conceptions are the limits of possibility.
Mr. Stewart's use of the term Conception.—Mr. Stewart has employed the term Conception in a somewhat peculiar manner, and has assigned it a definite place among the faculties of the mind. He uses it to denote "that power of the mind which enables it to form a notion of an absent object of perception, or of a sensation which we have formerly felt." It is the office of this faculty "to present us with an exact transcript of what we have felt or perceived." In this respect it differs from imagination, which gives not an exact transcript, but one more or less altered or modified, combining our conceptions so as to form new results. It differs from memory in that it involves no idea of time, no recognition of the thing conceived, as a thing formerly perceived.
Objection to this use.—This use of the term is, on some accounts, objectionable. It is certainly not the ordinary sense of the word, but a departure from established usage. It is an arbitrary limitation of a word to denote a part only instead of the whole of that which it properly signifies There is no reason, in the nature of the case, why the notion we form of an absent object of perception, or of a sensation, should be called a conception, rather than our notion of an abstract truth, a proposition in morals, or a mathematical problem. I am not aware that any special importance attaches to the former more than to the latter class of conceptions. Indeed, Sir W. Hamilton limits the term to the latter. But this again is not in accordance with established usage.
INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES
PART FIRST
THE
PRESENTATIVE POWER
SENSE OR PERCEPTION BY THE SENSES.
§ I.—General Observations.
This Faculty the Foundation of our Knowledge.—Of the cognitive powers of the mind, the first to be
