Note note 17 — ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF THE HUMAN MIND James Mill
Reading edition
17 These effects pass beyond the influence of mere digestion. All the viscera contribute to the condition of high general vigour and comfort here supposed. If one were to venture upon a scale of relative importance of the different organs, one would place the nervous centres first, and the digestion second.
The present section is open to several remarks. Some qualification must be given to the author’s surmise ‘that a perpetual train of sensations is going on in every part of the alimentary canal.’ It is hardly correct to say that there are perpetual sensations in any part of it: during a great part of our time we are in a state of indifference as to stomachic changes; and not merely because we are not disposed to attend to them, but because they scarcely exist. The sensibility of the organ is shown, on anatomical grounds, to be mainly in the stomach, and in the rectum; these parts are supplied by the nervus vagus; and very few nerves, besides those of the sympathetic system, are found in the smaller, or in the larger intestine, so that the sensitiveness of those parts is manifested only in case of violent disorganization, as cramp, stoppage, or inflammation. Hence the feelings are principally attendant on the changes in the stomach, as when food has just been taken, and after long privation, when the state called hunger shows itself.
It is not correct to class the sensations of the alimentary canal, as a whole, with those that lose their hold of the attention, that become unheeded in themselves, and are valued only as the antecedents of other more pleasurable feelings. The remark is inapplicable to the sensations mainly characterized as pleasure or pain; nothing can be more interesting than a pleasure, except a still greater pleasure. It applies only to those slight irritations that are in themselves nothing, but may be the symptoms or precursors of ill health, or of returning good health.
The author’s doctrine as to our acquiring artificially the habit of not attending to alimentary states, demands a fuller explanation. The usual cause of inattention to impressions is unbroken continuance; in accordance with the universal law of Relativity or Change, we are usually insensible to the contact of our clothing with the skin, except at the moments when we put on or take off any part of it. In walking, and in standing, for a length of time, we are insensible to the body’s weight; on rising from the recumbent position we are rendered in some degree conscious of it. Now as the alimentary sensations—Hunger and Repletion—are intermitted and alternated with other states, they fulfil the chief condition of wakeful consciousness.
The example of the striking of the clock, adduced in the text, brings into operation a different power of the mind, which may go far to counteract the influence of change. Under a very engrossing sensation, or occupation, we become insensible to the stimulation of the senses by other agents. The strain of the mind in some one direction causes a sort of incapacity for going out in any other direction while the strain lasts. This is the explanation of the indifference to the striking of the clock. By the farther influence of habit, inattention to a certain class of impressions may become habitual; as in the power of carrying on mental work in the midst of distracting noises.
The same effect may arise in connection with the alimentary feelings. A person very much engrossed with a subject is unconscious of hunger, and does not feel the pleasures of eating. Should any one be absorbed habitually with some occupation or pursuit, such an one may contract a settled indifference to the recurring phases of alimentary sensation; but this is an extreme and unusual case. Any ordinary degree of interest in the avocations and pursuits of business is compatible with full attention to the feelings of hunger, and of repletion, as well as to the occasional pains and discomforts of indigestion. We do not often choose to contract an indifference to pleasures, and we seldom succeed in acquiring an indifference to pains, although we may have moments of such indifference, under some special engrossment of mind by other things.
It is over-rating the influence of association to make it a chief element in the pleasure of intoxicating stimulants, or in the wretched feelings of diseased digestion. These states are direct results of physical agency, and are the same throughout all stages of life, with many or with few opportunities of being associated with other feelings. They are not the cases favourable for illustrating the power of association, in the important department of the feelings.—B.