The Mind and the Brain. Alfred Binet
target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#n14" type="note">14 (la conscience), and we will call object everything which is not the act of consciousness.
After this preliminary distinction, to which we shall often refer, we will go over the principal manifestations of the mind, and we will first study the objects of cognition, reserving for another chapter the study of the acts of cognition—that is to say, of consciousness. We will thus examine successively sensation, idea, emotion, and will.
It has been often maintained that the peculiar property of mind is to perceive sensations. It has also been said that thought—that is, the property of representing to one's self that which does not exist—distinguishes mind from matter. Lastly, it has not failed to be affirmed that one thing which the mind brings into the material world is its power of emotion; and moralists, choosing somewhat arbitrarily among certain emotions, have said that the mind is the creator of goodness. We will endeavour to analyse these different affirmations.
CHAPTER II
DEFINITION OF SENSATION
When making the analysis of matter we impliedly admitted two propositions: first, that sensation is the tertium quid which is interposed between the excitant of our sensory nerves and ourselves; secondly, that the aggregate of our sensations is all we can know of the outer world, so that it is correct to define this last as the collection of our present, past, and possible sensations. It is not claimed that the outer world is nothing else than this, but it is claimed with good reason that the outer world is nothing else to us.
It would be possible to draw from the above considerations a clear definition of sensation, and especially it would be possible to decide henceforth from the foregoing whether sensation is a physical or a mental phenomenon, and whether it belongs to matter or to mind. This is the important point, the one which we now state, and which we will endeavour to resolve. To make the question clearer, we will begin it afresh, as if it were new, and as if the facts hitherto analysed did not already prejudge the solution. Let us begin by giving a definition of sensation from the point of view of experimental psychology.
Sensation, then, is the phenomenon which is produced and which one experiences when an excitant has just acted on one of our organs of sense. This phenomenon is therefore composed of two parts: an action exercised from outside by some body or other on our nervous substance; and, then, the fact of feeling this action.
This fact of feeling, this state of consciousness, is necessary to constitute sensation; when it does not exist, it is preferable to give the phenomenon another name, otherwise the fault is committed of mixing up separate facts. Physiologists have, on this point, some faults of terminology with which to reproach themselves: for they have employed the word sensibility with too little of the critical spirit. Sensibility, being capacity for sensation, presupposes, like sensation itself, consciousness. It has, therefore, been wrong, in physiology, to speak of the sensibility of the tissues and organs, which, like the vegetable tissues or the animal organs of vegetative life, properly speaking, feel nothing, but react by rapid or slow movements to the excitements they are made to receive. Reaction, by a movement or any kind of modification, to an excitement, does not constitute a sensation unless consciousness is joined with it, and, consequently, it would be wiser to give unfelt excitements and reactions the name of excitability.
The clearest examples of sensation are furnished by the study of man, and are taken from cases where we perceive an external object. The object produces upon us an action, and this action is felt; only, in such cases, the fact of sensation comprises but a very small part of the event. It only corresponds, by definition, to the actual action of the object. Analysis after analysis has shown that we constantly perceive far beyond this actual action of objects. Our mind, as we say, outruns our senses. To our sensations, images come to attach themselves which result from sensations anteriorly felt in analogous circumstances. These images produce in us an illusion, and we take them for sensations, so that we think we perceive something which is but a remembrance or an idea; the reason being that our mind cannot remain in action in the presence of a sensation, but unceasingly labours to throw light upon it, to sound it, and to arrive at its meaning, and consequently alters it by adding to it. This addition is so constant, so unavoidable, that the existence of an isolated sensation which should be perceived without the attachment of images, without modification or interpretation, is well-nigh unrealisable in the consciousness of an adult. It is a myth.
Let us, however, imagine this isolation to be possible, and that we have before us a sensation free from any other element. What is this sensation? Does it belong to the domain of physical or of moral things? Is it a state of matter or of mind?
I can neither doubt nor dispute that sensation is, in part, a psychological phenomenon, since I have admitted, by the very definition I have given of it, that sensation implies consciousness. We must, therefore, acknowledge those who define it as a state of consciousness to be right, but it would be more correct to call it the consciousness of a state, and it is with regard to the nature of this state that the question presents itself. It is only this state which we will now take into consideration. It is understood that sensation contains both an impression and a cognition. Let us leave till later the study of the act of cognition, and deal with the impression. Is this impression now of a physical or a mental nature? Both the two opposing opinions have been upheld. In this there is nothing astonishing, for in metaphysics one finds the expression of every possible opinion. But a large, an immense majority of philosophers has declared in favour of the psychological nature of the impression. Without even making the above distinction between the impression and the act of cognition, it has been admitted that the entire sensation, taken en bloc, is a psychological phenomenon, a modification of our consciousness and a peculiar state of our minds. Descartes has even employed this very explicit formula: "The objects we perceive are within our understanding." It is curious to see how little trouble authors take to demonstrate this opinion; they declare it to be self-evident, which is a convenient way of avoiding all proof. John Stuart Mill has no hesitation in affirming that: "The mind, in perceiving external objects, can only take notice of its own conditions." And Renouvier expresses the same arbitrary assertion with greater obscurity when he writes: "The monad is constituted by this relation: the connection of the subject with the object within the subject."15 In other words, it is laid down as an uncontrovertible principle that "the mental can only enter into direct relations with the mental." That is what may be called "the principle of Idealism."
This principle seems to me very disputable, and it is to me an astonishing thing that the most resolute of sceptics—Hume, for example—should have accepted it without hesitation. I shall first enunciate my personal opinion, then make known another which only differs from mine by a difference of words, and finally I will discuss a third opinion, which seems to me radically wrong.
My personal opinion is that sensation is of a mixed nature. It is psychical in so far as it implies an act of consciousness, and physical otherwise. The impression on which the act of cognition operates, that impression which is directly produced by the excitant of the nervous system, seems to me, without any doubt, to be of an entirely physical nature. This opinion, which I make mine own, has only been upheld by very few philosophers—Thomas Reid perhaps, and William Hamilton for certain; but neither has perceived its deep-lying consequences.
What are the arguments on which I rely? They are of different orders, and are arguments of fact and arguments of logic. I shall first appeal to the natural conviction of those who have never ventured into metaphysics. So long as no endeavour has been made to demonstrate the contrary to them, they believe, with a natural and naïve belief, that matter is that which is seen, touched and felt, and that, consequently, matter and our senses are confounded. They would be greatly astonished to be informed that when we appear to perceive the outer world, we simply perceive our ideas; that when we take the train for Lyons we enter into one state of consciousness in order to attain another state of consciousness.
Now, the adherents of this natural and naïve opinion have, as they say in the law, the right of possession (possession d'état); they are not plaintiffs but defendants; it is not for them to prove they are in the right, it has to be proved against them that they are in the wrong. Until this proof is forthcoming they have a presumption in their favour.
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Ch. Renouvier et L. Prat,