Theaetetus
the other negative infinity of space, becomes positive. Whether time is
prior to the mind and to experience, or coeval with them, is (like
the parallel question about space) unmeaning. Like space it has been
realized gradually: in the Homeric poems, or even in the Hesiodic
cosmogony, there is no more notion of time than of space. The conception
of being is more general than either, and might therefore with greater
plausibility be affirmed to be a condition or quality of the mind. The a
priori intuitions of Kant would have been as unintelligible to Plato as
his a priori synthetical propositions to Aristotle. The philosopher of
Konigsberg supposed himself to be analyzing a necessary mode of thought:
he was not aware that he was dealing with a mere abstraction. But now
that we are able to trace the gradual developement of ideas through
religion, through language, through abstractions, why should we
interpose the fiction of time between ourselves and realities? Why
should we single out one of these abstractions to be the a priori
condition of all the others? It comes last and not first in the order of
our thoughts, and is not the condition precedent of them, but the last
generalization of them. Nor can any principle be imagined more suicidal
to philosophy than to assume that all the truth which we are capable of
attaining is seen only through an unreal medium. If all that exists
in time is illusion, we may well ask with Plato, 'What becomes of the
mind?'
Leaving the a priori conditions of sensation we may proceed to consider
acts of sense. These admit of various degrees of duration or intensity;
they admit also of a greater or less extension from one object, which is
perceived directly, to many which are perceived indirectly or in a less
degree, and to the various associations of the object which are latent
in the mind. In general the greater the intension the less the extension
of them. The simplest sensation implies some relation of objects to
one another, some position in space, some relation to a previous or
subsequent sensation. The acts of seeing and hearing may be almost
unconscious and may pass away unnoted; they may also leave an impression
behind them or power of recalling them. If, after seeing an object we
shut our eyes, the object remains dimly seen in the same or about the
same place, but with form and lineaments half filled up. This is the
simplest act of memory. And as we cannot see one thing without at
the same time seeing another, different objects hang together in
recollection, and when we call for one the other quickly follows. To
think of the place in which we have last seen a thing is often the
best way of recalling it to the mind. Hence memory is dependent on
association. The act of recollection may be compared to the sight of an
object at a great distance which we have previously seen near and seek
to bring near to us in thought. Memory is to sense as dreaming is to
waking; and like dreaming has a wayward and uncertain power of recalling
impressions from the past.
Thus begins the passage from the outward to the inward sense. But as
yet there is no conception of a universal--the mind only remembers
the individual object or objects, and is always attaching to them some
colour or association of sense. The power of recollection seems to
depend on the intensity or largeness of the perception, or on the
strength of some emotion with which it is inseparably connected. This is
the natural memory which is allied to sense, such as children appear to
have and barbarians and animals. It is necessarily limited in range, and
its limitation is its strength. In later life, when the mind has become
crowded with names, acts, feelings, images innumerable, we acquire
by education another memory of system and arrangement which is both
stronger and weaker than the first--weaker in the recollection
of sensible impressions as they are represented to us by eye or
ear--stronger by the natural connexion of ideas with objects or with one
another. And many of the notions which form a part of the train of our
thoughts are hardly realized by us at the time, but, like numbers or
algebraical symbols, are used as signs only, thus lightening the labour
of recollection.
And now we may suppose that numerous images present themselves to the
mind, which begins to act upon them and to arrange them in various
ways. Besides the impression of external objects present with us or just
absent from us, we have a dimmer conception of other objects which have
disappeared from our immediate recollection and yet continue to exist in
us. The mind is full of fancies which are passing to and fro before it.
Some feeling or association calls them up, and they are uttered by the
lips. This is the first rudimentary imagination, which may be truly
described in the language of Hobbes, as 'decaying sense,' an expression
which may be applied with equal truth to memory as well. For memory and
imagination, though we sometimes oppose them, are nearly allied; the
difference between them seems chiefly to lie in the activity of the one
compared with the passivity of the other. The sense decaying in memory
receives a flash of light or life from imagination. Dreaming is a link
of connexion between them; for in dreaming we feebly recollect and also
feebly imagine at one and the same time. When reason is asleep the
lower part of the mind wanders at will amid the images which have been
received from without, the intelligent element retires, and the sensual
or sensuous takes its place. And so in the first efforts of imagination
reason is latent or set aside; and images, in part disorderly, but also
having a unity (however imperfect) of their own, pour like a flood over
the mind. And if we could penetrate into the heads of animals we should
probably find that their intelligence, or the state of what in them is
analogous to our intelligence, is of this nature.
Thus far we have been speaking of men, rather in the points in which
they resemble animals than in the points in which they differ from
them. The animal too has memory in various degrees, and the elements
of imagination, if, as appears to be the case, he dreams. How far their
powers or instincts are educated by the circumstances of their lives
or by intercourse with one another or with mankind, we cannot precisely
tell. They, like ourselves, have the physical inheritance of form,
scent, hearing, sight, and other qualities or instincts. But they
have not the mental inheritance of thoughts and ideas handed down by
tradition, 'the slow additions that build up the mind' of the human
race. And language, which is the great educator of mankind, is wanting
in them; whereas in us language is ever present--even in the infant the
latent power of naming is almost immediately observable. And therefore
the description which has been already given of the nascent power of
the faculties is in reality an anticipation. For simultaneous with their
growth in man a growth of language must be supposed. The child of two
years old sees the fire once and again, and the feeble observation of
the same recurring object is associated with the feeble utterance of the
name by which he is taught to call it. Soon he learns to utter the name
when the object is no longer there, but the desire or imagination of it
is present to him. At first in every use of the word there is a colour
of sense, an indistinct picture of the object which accompanies it. But
in later years he sees in the name only the universal or class word, and
the more abstract the notion becomes, the more vacant is the image
which is presented to him. Henceforward all the operations of his mind,
including the perceptions of sense, are a synthesis of sensations,
words, conceptions. In seeing or hearing or looking or listening the
sensible impression prevails over the conception and the word. In
reflection the process is reversed--the outward object fades away into
nothingness, the name or the conception or both together are everything.
Language, like number, is intermediate between the two, partaking of the
definiteness of the outer and of the universality of the inner world.
For logic teaches us that every word is really a universal, and only
condescends by the help of position or circumlocution to become the
expression of individuals or particulars. And sometimes by using words
as symbols we are able to give a 'local habitation and a name' to the
infinite and inconceivable.
Thus we see that no line can be drawn between the powers of sense and
of reflection--they pass imperceptibly into one another. We may indeed
distinguish between the seeing and the closed eye--between the sensation
and the recollection of it. But this distinction carries us a very
little way, for recollection is present in sight as well as sight
in recollection. There is no impression of sense which does not
simultaneously recall differences of form, number, colour, and the like.
Neither is such a distinction applicable at all to our internal bodily
sensations, which give no sign of themselves when unaccompanied with
pain, and even when we are most conscious of them, have often no
assignable place in the human frame. Who can divide the nerves or great
nervous centres from the mind which uses them? Who can separate the
pains and pleasures of the mind from the pains and pleasures of the
body? The words 'inward and outward,' 'active and passive,' 'mind and
body,' are best conceived by us as differences of degree passing into
differences of kind, and at one time and under one aspect acting in
harmony and then again opposed. They introduce a system and order into
the knowledge of our being; and yet, like many other general terms, are
often in advance of our actual analysis or observation.
According to some writers the inward sense is only the fading away or
imperfect realization of the outward. But this leaves out of sight one
half of the phenomenon. For the mind is not only withdrawn from
the world of sense but introduced to a higher world of thought and
reflection, in which, like the outward sense, she is trained and
educated. By use the outward sense becomes keener and more intense,
especially when confined within narrow limits. The savage with little
or no thought has a quicker discernment of the track than the civilised
man; in like manner the dog, having the help of scent as well as of
sight, is superior to the savage. By use again the inward thought
becomes more defined and distinct; what was at first an effort is made
easy by the natural instrumentality of language, and the mind learns to
grasp universals with no more exertion than is required for the sight of
an outward object. There is a natural connexion and arrangement of them,
like the association of objects in a landscape. Just as a note or two of
music suffices to recall a whole piece to the musician's or composer's
mind, so a great principle or leading thought suggests and arranges a
world of particulars. The power of reflection is not feebler than the
faculty of sense, but of a higher and more comprehensive nature. It not
only receives the universals of sense, but gives them a new content by
comparing and combining them with one another. It withdraws from the
seen that it may dwell in the unseen. The sense only presents us with
a flat and impenetrable surface: the mind takes the world to pieces and
puts it together on a new pattern. The universals which are detached
from sense are reconstructed in science. They and not the mere
impressions of sense are the truth of the world in which we live; and
(as an argument to those who will only believe 'what they can hold in
their hands') we may further observe that they are the source of our
power over it. To say that the outward sense is stronger than the