powers.
The more recent Method.—The threefold division of the mental faculties very early came into use among philosophical and theological writers in this country, and is now very generally adopted by the more recent European writers of note, especially in France and Germany. According to this division the various affections and emotions constitute a department by themselves, distinct from the will or the voluntary principle. There are many reasons for such a distinction; they have been well stated by Professor Upham Cousin adopts and defends the threefold division, and previously still, Kant, in Germany, had distinguished the mental powers under the leading divisions of intelligence, sensibility, and desire.
MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
DIVISION FIRST.
THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES.
PRELIMINARY TOPICS.
CHAPTER I.
CONSCIOUSNESS.
General Statement.—Before proceeding to investigate the several specific faculties of the intellect, as already classified, there are certain preliminary topics to be considered, certain mental phenomena, or mental states, involved more or less fully in all mental activity, and on that account hardly to be classed as specific faculties, yet requiring distinct consideration. Such are the mental states which we denominate as consciousness and attention.
Definitions.—Consciousness is defined by Webster as the knowledge of sensations and mental operations, or of what passes in our own minds; by Wayland, as that condition of the mind in which it is cognizant of its own operations; by Cousin, as that function of the intelligence which gives us information of every thing which takes place in the interior of our minds; by Dr. Henry, translator of Cousin, as the being aware of the phenomena of the mind—of that which is present to the mind; by Professor Tappan, as the necessary knowledge which the mind has of its own operations. These general definitions substantially agree. The mind is aware of its own operations, its sensations, perceptions, emotions, choices, etc., and the state or act of being thus cognizant of its own phenomena we designate by the general term Consciousness.
Reasons for regarding Consciousness as not a distinct Faculty.—Is this, however, a distinct faculty of the mind? The mind, it is said, is always cognizant of its own operations: when it perceives, it is conscious of perceiving; when it reasons, it is conscious of reasoning; when it feels, it is conscious of feeling; and not to be conscious of any particular mental act, is not to perform that act. To have a sensation, and to be conscious of that sensation, it is said, are not two things, but one and the same, the difference being only in name. A perception is indivisible, cannot be analyzed into a fact, and the consciousness of the fact, for the perception is an act of knowing, and does not take place if it be not known to take place. This is the view taken by Sir William Hamilton, Professor Bowen, and others of high authority. It was maintained by Dr. Brown with much force as an objection to the doctrine of Reid, who had recognized consciousness as a distinct faculty.
Reasons for the opposite View.—On the other hand, the claims of this form of mental activity to be regarded as a faculty of the mind, distinct from and coördinate with the other mental powers, are admitted and maintained by writers of authority, among whom are Dr. Wayland and President Mahan. They maintain that the office of consciousness being to give us knowledge of our own mental states, and this function being quite distinct from that of any other mental faculty, the capacity or power of performing this function deserves to be regarded as itself a faculty of the mind. It is maintained also by Dr. Wayland that consciousness does not necessarily invariably accompany all mental action, but that there may be, and are, acts of which we are not at the time conscious.
Instances in proof of this Position.—In support of this position he refers to certain cases as instances of unconscious perception; as when, for example, a clock strikes within a few feet of us, while we are busily engaged, and we do not notice it, or know that it has struck, yet if questioned afterward, are conscious of an impression that we have heard it; as when also while reading aloud to another person, some thought arrests our attention, and yet by a sort of mechanical process, we continue the reading, our mind, meanwhile, wholly occupied with another subject, until presently we are startled to find that we have not the remotest conception of what we have just been reading; yet we read every word correctly, and must, it would seem, have perceived every word and letter. He refers also to the case of the short-hand writer to the House of Lords in England, who, on a certain occasion, while engaged in taking the depositions of witnesses in an important case, after many hours of continued exertion and fatigue, fell, for a few moments, into a state of entire unconsciousness, yet kept on writing down, and that with perfect accuracy, the depositions of the witness. Of the last few lines, when he came to read them, he had no recollection whatever, yet they were written as legibly and accurately as the rest. From these and similar cases it is inferred that there may be mental activity of which we have at the time no consciousness.
The Evidence examined.—With regard to the cases now cited, it seems to me that they do not fully establish the point in question. For in the first place, it may be doubted whether they really involve any mental activity—whether they are properly mental acts, and not merely mechanical or automatic. It is well known that many processes which ordinarily require more or less attention may, when they have become perfectly familiar, be carried on for a time almost without thought. The senses, so far as they are required to act at all, seem in such cases to act mechanically or automatically, somewhat as a wheel when once set in motion continues for a time to revolve by its own momentum, after the propelling force is withdrawn. The mental activity exerted in such cases, if there be any, is so very slight as to escape attention, and we are unconscious of it simply because there was little or nothing to be conscious of. We have an illustration of this in the act of walking, while busily engaged in conversation with a friend, or in our own meditations. We are not conscious of any mental act preceding or directing each step and movement of the limbs, but having at the outset decided what direction to take, the mind gives itself to other matters, while the process of walking goes on by a sort of mechanical impulse, until presently something occurs to arrest our attention and direct it to the physical movement in which we are engaged. The muscular contractions tend to follow each other in a certain regular succession; a certain law of association seems to govern their movements, as is seen in the rapid motions of the pianist, the flute player, the type distributor, and in many similar cases; and so long as the regular succession, and accustomed order of movement, is undisturbed, the process goes on with little or no interference of the intellectual principle. In such cases the act can hardly be said to involve mental activity.
A further Question.—But aside from this, even admitting that the acts under consideration are such as to involve mental activity, what evidence is there, it may still be asked, that there was at the moment no consciousness of that activity? That there was subsequently no consciousness of it, does not make it certain that there was none at the time. The subsequent consciousness of an act is neither more nor less than memory, and is not properly consciousness at all. Consciousness takes cognizance, properly speaking, only of the present, not of the past. The absence of subsequent consciousness is simply absence of memory, and this may be accounted for in other ways than by supposing a total absence of consciousness in the first instance. Whatever mental activity was really exerted by the short-hand reporter in the case referred to, he was, doubtless, conscious of exerting at the time, but it may have been so slight, and the mind so little impressed by it, in the state of physical weariness and prostration, that
