Note note 23 — ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF THE HUMAN MIND James Mill

23 The Sensation and the Idea compared.—Great importance, in every way, attaches to the points of agreement and of difference of the Sensation and of the Idea. By the Sensation, we mean the whole state of consciousness, under an actual or present impression of sense, as in looking at the moon, in listening to music, in tasting wine. By the Idea is meant the state of mind that remains after the sensible agent is withdrawn, or that may be afterwards recovered by the force of recollection.

1. For many purposes the sensation and the idea are identical. They are compared to original and copy, which, although not in all respects of equal value, can often answer the same ends. A perfect recollection of a process that we wish to repeat, is as good as actually seeing it. For all purposes of knowledge, and of practical guidance, a faithful remembrance is equal to the real presence. So, as regards the emotional ideas, or the recollection of states of pleasure and of pain, which prompt our voluntary actions, in pursuit and in avoidance, the memory operates in the same way as the original fact, allowance being made for difference of degree. A pleasing melody induces us to listen to it, and to crave for its repetition; the after recollection of it, also moves us to hear it again. If we find ourselves in the midst of distracting noises, we are impelled to escape; the mere remembrance, at an after time, has the same influence on the will.

2. It is highly probable, if not certain, that the same nervous tracks of the brain are actuated during the sensation, and during the idea, with difference of degree corresponding to the difference of vivacity or intensity of the actual and remembered states.

Of the points wherein the Sensation and the Idea are found to differ, the most obvious is their degree of intensity. We are able to maintain in idea, the state of mind corresponding to the sight of the sun, the sound of a bell, or the smell of a rose, but we are conscious of a great inferiority in the degree or vividness of the state. The bright luminosity of the original sun turns into a feeble effect, without dazzle or excitement. The thrill of a fine musical air cannot be sustained by the mere memory of it, even in the freshness of the immediately succeeding moment. A certain pleasing remembrance attaches to a good dinner, but how far below the original! Moreover, in a complicated object of sense, a great many of the parts and lineaments drop entirely out of view. Memory is unequal to retaining, without long familiarity and practice, the exact picture of a landscape, a building, or an interior. The difference in the fulness of the idea, as compared with the sensation, is no less remarkable than the difference of vivacity or intensity. This inferiority in the idea as compared with the actuality is of very various amount; being in some cases very great, and in others very slight. The difference is in proportion to the mind’s power of retentiveness, a power varying according to several circumstances or conditions, which have to be distinctly enunciated by the Psychologist. For example, it is well known, that frequency of repetition enables the idea to grow in vivacity and in fulness, and to approximate in those respects to the original. It is also known, that some minds are by nature retentive, and, by a small number of repetitions, gain the point that others reach only by a greater number.

Now, that the vivacity and fulness of a remembered idea should constitute the exact measure of the mind’s retentiveness in that particular instance, is a thing of course. There is no other measure of retentiveness but the power of reproducing in idea, what has been before us, in actuality, or as sensation; and the greater the approach of the idea to the original sensation, the better is the retaining faculty.

There is an apparent exception to this general principle. The memory of the same idea, or the same feeling, in the same person, may be at one time full and vivid, and at another time meagre and faint. In particular moments, we may recall former experiences with especial force, as if there were something that co-operated with the proper force of retentiveness. What, then, are these additional or concurring forces? Hume recognises the influence of disease in giving preternatural intensity to ideas.

The answer is that some other recollection concurs with, and adds its quota to the support of, the one in question. When, in the view of one natural prospect, we recall another with great fulness, the present sensation supplies or fills in the parts of the remembered scene; which scene, therefore, does not exist in the mind by memory alone, but as a compound of memory and actuality. So while listening with pleasure to a band of music, we remember strongly the pleasure of some previous musical performance; yet, the vivid consciousness of the past is not dependent upon the memory of the past, but upon the stimulus of the present; we are more properly under sensation, than under idea. In all mental resuscitation, there is a degree of vividness and of fulness, due to the proper retentiveness of the mind for each particular thing, according to natural power, repetition, &c. Whatever is beyond this, must be ascribed to the accidental concurrence of other stimulants, either of present sensation, or of remembered impressions.

In recollection, there is an influence designated by the term “excitement," which means that portions of the brain are in a state of exalted activity. Any ideas embodied in the parts so excited, if in operation at all, are more than ordinarily vivid. Thus in fever, faded memories brighten up into vivacity and clearness. To this case the same remark applies; the result is partly memory, or the proper retentiveness of the system, and partly an excitation of the brain, through present influences. The proper power of memory is a constant quantity, varying only with repetition, and the strict conditions of memory; the intensity or fulness of a resuscitated idea is a complex result of memory proper and present stimulants, or sensations.

Difference of vividness was the only distinction adverted to by Hume in his Psychology, which resolved all our intellectual elements into Impressions and Ideas. His opening words are:—“All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call impressions and ideas. The difference between these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness, with which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness.” He afterwards allows that in particular circumstances, as in sleep, in fever, or in madness, our ideas may approach in vividness to our sensations.

Another distinction between the Sensation and the Idea, is of the most vital importance. To the Sensation belongs Objective Reality; the Idea is purely Subjective. This distinction lies at the root of the question of an External World; but on every view of that question, objectivity is connected with the Sensation; in contrast to which the Idea is an element exclusively mental or subjective.

Meanings of Sensation.—The word Sensation has several meanings, not always clearly distinguished, and causing serious embroilments in philosophical controversy.

1. There being, in Sensation, the concurrence of a series of physical or physiological facts with a mental fact, the name may be inadvertently employed to express the physical, as well as the mental element, or at all events to include the physical part as well as the mental.

The change made on the retina by light, and the nervous influences traversing the brain, may very readily be considered as entering into the phenomenon of sensation. This, however, is an impropriety. The proper use of “Sensation” is to signify the mental fact, to the exclusion of all the physical processes essential to its production.

2. In ordinary Sensation, as in looking round a room, there is a double consciousness,—objective and subjective. In the objective consciousness, we are affected with the qualities named magnitude, distance, form, colour, &c.; these are called object properties, properties of the external and extended universe. In the subject consciousness, we are alive to states of pleasure or of pain, which may go along with the other. We do not usually exist in both modes at one instant; we pass out of one into the other. Now the word Sensation covers both, although, to the object consciousness, “Perception” is more strictly applicable; and in contrast to Perception, Sensation would mean the subjective consciousness, the moments when we relapse from the object attitude and become subjective or self-conscious, or alive to pleasure and pain. When the mind is in the object phase, it is neutral or indifferent as respects enjoyment.

3. In Sensation, a distinction may be drawn between the present effect upon the mind, or the impression that would arise if the outward agent had operated for the first time, and the total of the past impressions of the same agent, which by its repetition are recalled to fuse with the present effect. The present view of the moon reinstates the sum total of the previous views held by memory, and is not what we should experience if we saw the moon for the first time. Now, if the recall of the previous impressions, or of the joint and iterated idea, be considered an addition made by the Intellect, being dependent on the retentive power of the mind, Sensation, as opposed to Intellect, would mean the force of the present impression and nothing more; or the difference between the vividness of reality, and the inferior vividness of recollection. What we can retain when we shut our eyes would represent the force of our intelligence; the additional intensity when we resume our gaze, would represent the power of sensation or the actual experience.

This distinction suggests an important remark as to the whole nature of Sensation, namely, that there can hardly be such a thing as pure Sensation, meaning Sensation without any admixture of the Intellect. We may attribute this purity to the earliest impressions made upon the mind, but not to anything known in the experience of the adult. This mixture of Intellect with Sense is not confined to Retentiveness; the other intellectual functions, Discrimination and perception of Agreement, are inseparable from the exercise of the senses. We cannot have a sensation without a feeling of difference; warmth is a transition from cold, and a conscious discrimination of the two facts. So, whenever we repeat a sensation, we have the consciousness of the repetition, or agreement. Were not these modes of consciousness present, we should have no sensation, indeed no consciousness. There is thus no hard line between sense and intellect. The question as to the origin of our Ideas in Sense is not a real question, until we explain what we mean by Sense, and make allowance for this unavoidable participation of Intellect in sensation.

4. Sensation is commonly used to employ the whole of our primary feelings and susceptibilities, as opposed to the Emotions which are secondary or derived. It thus confounds together two different sides of our susceptibility, the active and the passive; the feelings arising in connection with our exertion of inward force or energy, and those arising under impressions from external things. Both are primary states of consciousness; they are alike dependent on modifications of our sensitive tissues. But, between the two, there is a contrast, wide, deep, and fundamental, completely missed by the older Psychologists, to the detriment of their handling of such vital questions as the origin of knowledge, and the perception of a material world. The name Sensation, pointing immediately to the operation of the five senses, gave the slip to the feelings of energy, or brought them in partially and inadequately. Yet it is the only name we have for the primary susceptibilities of the organism including both movement and passive sensibility.—B.