der this and the first case, respecting the causes and effects of such recurrence. 57. On the whole it may appear to the reader, that the simple ideas of sensation must run into clusters and combinations, by association; and that each of these will, at last, coalesce into one compound or complex idea. It appears also, from observation, that many of our mental or intellectual ideas (that is, those in which no particular idea of sensation is perceptible), such as those which belong to the heads of beauty, honour, moral qualities, &c. are, in fact, thus composed of parts, which by degrees coalesce into one complex idea. And as this coalescence of simple into complex ideas is thus evinced, both by the theory of association and by observation, so it may be illustrated and further confirmed, by the similar coalescence of letters into syllables and words, in which association is likewise a chief instrument. 58. If the number of simple ideas which compose the complex idea be very great, it may happen that the complex ide a shall not appear to bear any relation to its component parts, nor to the external senses by which the original sensations were received. The reason of this is, that each sin gle idea is overpowered by the sum of all the rest, as soon as they are all intimately united together. Thus in very compound medicines, the several tastes and flavours of the separate ingredients are lost and overpowered by the complex one of the whole mass: so that this has a taste and flavour of its own, which appears to be simple and original. Thus also white appears, and is vulgarly thought to be, the simplest of all colours, while yet it really arises from a certain mixture of the seven primary colours in their due shades and proportions. And to resume the illustration above-mentioned, to one unacquainted with the arts of reading and writing, it could not appear probable, that the great variety of complex sounds in language are to be analyzed into a few simple sounds. One may hope, therefore, that by pursuing and perfecting the doctrine of association, we may some time or other be enabled to analyze all that vast variety of complex ideas which pass under the names of ideas of reflection, abstract ideas, desires, affections, &c. into their simple component parts, that is, into the simple ideas of sensation of which they are formed. This would be greatly analogous to the representation of complex articulate sounds by alphabetical signs, and to the resolution of colours, or of natural bodies, into their simple constituent parts. The complex ideas here spoken of are generally excited by words or visible objects; but they are also connected with other external impressions, and depend upon them as symbols. In whatever way we consider them, the trains of them which are presented to the mind seem to depend upon the then present state of the body, the external impressions and the remaining influence of prior impressions and associations taken together. 59. As simple ideas of sensation run into complex ones by association, so complex ideas run into decomplex ones by association. But here the varieties of the associations, which increase with the complexity, hinder particular ones from being so close and permanent between the complex parts of decomplex ideas, as between the simple parts of complex ones. 60. The simple ideas of sensation are not all equally and uniformly concerned in forming complex and decomplex ideas, but, on the contrary, some occur much oftener than others; and the same holds good of complex ideas as the component parts of decomplex ideas: and innumerable combinations never occur at all in real life, and consequently are never associated into complex and decomplex ideas. Just as, in languages, some letters, and combinations of letters, occur much more frequently than others, and some combinations never occur at all.-Further, as persons who speak the same language have, however, a different use and extent of words, so, though mankind in all ages and nations agree, in general, in their complex and decomplex ideas, yet there are many particular differences in them, and these differences are greater or less, according to the difference or resemblance in age, constitution, education, profession, country, period, &c. that is, in their impressions and associations. 61. When sensations and ideas, with their most common combinations, have been often presented to the mind, a train of them, of considerable length, may, by once occurring, produce such a tendency to recurrence, that they may recur, without the previous cause, in nearly the same order and proportion as in this single occurrence. For since each of the particular sensations and ideas is familiar, little more will be wanting for their recurrency than a few connecting links: and even these may, in some instances, be supplied by former similar instances. These considerations, when duly unfolded, seem to explain the chief phenomena of memory: and it will be easily seen from them, that the memory of adults, and of proficients 62. As many words have complex ideas annexed to them, so sentences, which are collections of words, have collections of complex ideas, that is, have decomplex ideas. And it happens in some cases, that the decomplex idea belonging to any sentence is not compounded merely of the complex ideas belonging to the words of it; but that there are also many variations, some oppositions, and numberless additions. Thus propositions, in particular, excite, as soon as heard, assent or dissent; which assent or dissent consists chiefly of additional complex ideas not included in the terms of the proposition. And it would be of the greatest use both in the sciences and in common life, thoroughly to analyze this matter, to show in what manner, and by what steps, that is, by what impressions and associations our assent and dissent, both in scientifical and moral subjects, is formed. Respecting the vividness of complex ideas, and the intellectual Pleasures and Pains, in general. 63. It is reasonable to think, that some ideas may be as vivid as any sensation excited by the direct action of objects upon the external organs of sense. For complex ideas may consist of so many parts, and these may so alter and exalt one another, that the sensorial change (whatever that be), may be as great as can be produced by any single external impression. And we know as a matter of fact, that mental pains are sometimes so acute as to counterbalance, and even altogether remove, the attention from the most excruciating pain, which is merely that of sensation. This process may be assisted and accelerated by the mixture of vivid sensations among the ideas, by the sensibility of the mental frame, by a predisposition to a particular class of ideas, &c.-It is on this principle, in connection with the preceding statement, that we are enabled to account for the existence of intellectual or mental pleasures and pains (that is, those in which no particular sensible pleasure or pain is perceptible), which form a distinct and a most important class of feelings. The quality of sensible pleasures or pains, that is, of pleasurable or painful sensations, unite and coalesce in the same manner as other ideas; and, variously connected and blended together, they constitute the whole of those internal feelings which we call passions, affections, emotions, &c.— In almost every step of our investigations in mental philosopy, we are perplexed by the scantiness of language, and still more by the want of precision with which much more easy to point out faults than the words we have are employed. It is to correct them; but it appears to us likely to promote the object in one departlics of sensations), viz. those which are ment, if the two classes of ideas (the repleasurable or painful, and those which belong to the understanding, were denoare indifferent, or, more properly, which minated, the latter notions, the former feelings. Popular language would, in a appropriation; but, at least in the comgreat measure, have borne us out in this obliged to employ feelings in a more gemencement of our statements, we were attended with consciousness, because we neral sense, viz. for every sensorial change have no other word in the language comprehending ideas and sensations: henceforwards, however, we wish to appropriate the word feelings to those complex ideas which are either pleasurable or painful, so as to correspond with Hartley's denomination "intellectual or mental pleasures and pains," including, as he appears to do, the affections and passions. 64. It appears from the preceding section, that the mental pleasures and pains may be equal to, or greater or less than, the sensible ones, according as each person unites more or fewer, more vivid or more languid ideas in the formation of the mental pleasures and pains. morality and religion, that the feelings 65. It is of the utmost consequence to should be analyzed into their simple component parts, by reversing the steps of the associations which concur to form them. For thus we may learn how to cherish and improve good ones, to check immoral, and how to suit our manner of and root out such as are mischievous and life, in some tolerable measure, to our intellectual and religious wants. And as this holds in respect of persons of all ages, so it is particularly true and worthy of consideration in respect of children ciently stocked with general precepts for and youth. The world is, indeed, suffiand whosoever will follow these faithfulthis purpose, grounded on experience; ly may expect good general success. However, the doctrine of association, understanding and affection, unfolds such when traced up the first rudiments of a scene, as cannot fail both to instruct and alarm all such as have any degree of interested concern for themselves, or of a benevolent one for others. site and equal pleasures, will be pure pleasures. 69. The intellectual pleasures and 66. Our original bodily structure, and pains are as real as the sensible ones, bethe impressions and associations which af-ing, in fact, nothing but the sensible pleafect us in passing through life, are so much alike, and yet not the same, that there must be both a great general resemblance among mankind, in respect of their mental pleasures and pains, and also many particular differences. 67. Some degree of spirituality (that is, that state of mind in which the pleasures and pains are not sensible), is the neces sary consequence of passing through life. The sensible pleasures and pains must be transferred by association more and more every day, upon things which of themselves afford neither pleasure nor pain. 68. Let the letters a, b, c, d, e, &c. represent the sensible pleasures, and x, y, and z, the sensible pains, supposing them to be only three in number; and let us suppose all these, both pleasures and pains, to be equal to each in degree. If now the ideas of these sensible pleasures and pains be associated together according to all the possible varieties, in order to form intellectual pleasures and pains, it is plain, that pleasure must prevail in all the combinations of seven or more let ters; and also, that when the several parts of these complex pleasures are sufficiently blended by association, the pains which enter into their composition will no longer be distinguished separately, but the resulting mixed and complex pleasures will appear to be pure and simple ones, equal in quantity to the excess of pleasure above pain, in each combination. Thus association would convert a state in which pleasure and pain are both perceived, by turns, into one in which pure pleasure would alone be perceived; at least would cause the beings who were under its influence, to any indefinite degree, to approach to this last state nearer than by any definite distance. Now, though the circumstances of mankind are not the same with those here supposed, yet they bear a great resemblance to them, during that part of our existence which is exposed to our observation; for our sensible pleasures are far more numerous than our sensible pains; and though the pains are in general greater than the pleasures, yet the sum total of the latter is probably greater than that of the former; whence the remainder, after the destruction of the pains by the oppo sures and pains variously mixed and blended together. They are also all equally of a factitious and acquired nature; and we must therefore estimate all of the pleasures equally, by their magnitude, permanency, and tendency to produce others: and the pains in like man ner. Of the Affections and Passions. 70. Affections, passions, and emotions, may be considered as the re-action of the mind towards those objects which, directly or indirectly, produce pleasure or pain. Supposing that by association, a very complex pleasurable feeling has been so connected with any object, as to be excited by the sensation or idea of that object; by degrees the object is considered as the source of that feeling, and the pleasurable feeling blended with the idea of the object, being the indirect or immediate source of it, is called love; the contrary feeling, produced by contrary associations, is called hatred. (We do not here speak of the particular modifications of these feelings, or of their restrictions, but of the general feelings excited in our minds by objects causing, or supposed to cause, pleasurable or painful feeling.) When either of them (the love, for instance), is habitually connected with any object, it is called an affection for that object; and all its various modifications, however, and in whatever degree produced, if they are more than the ebullitions of the moment, being permanent feelings ready to be excited by the appropriate object in appropriate situations, are also termed affections. If from any strength in the exciting cause, or peculiar sensibility of the frame, or peculiarly vivid associations, connected with objects of a specific cast, that cause or produce a vivid excitement of feeling, which (though it may last perhaps for a considerable time, if not excessive in degree), gradually loses its vividness, and altogether ceases, or settles down into a more permanent, but less acitve, feeling, that vivid vigorous feeling is denominated a passion. The mind may have such a predisposition to a certain set of passions, that these may be easily excited, and by every such excitement increase the pre disposition to future excitement, and add to the strength and vividness of the more permanent corresponding affections; but the excitement itself, and its effect, the passion, cannot, from the nature of the mind, last long. From this account it may appear, that the passions and affections differ from each other principally in their degree and duration. There is a third class of feelings, which may more properly be called emotions, than either passions or affections, where the pleasurable or painful feelings are not explicitly referred to the exciting cause, and have not that vividness and strength which is essential to a passion; they are states of pleasure or of pain, following the excitement of some affection, and generally accompanied or blended with trains of conceptions and thoughts. We are aware that we do not use this term in the sense in which Dr. Cogan professes to employ it; but we doubt, whether in this instance the usual penetration and accuracy of that philosopher have accompanied him; and as it appears to us, his own use of it is essentially different from that given in his definition, in which he confines it "to the external marks or visible changes produced by the impetus of the passions upon the corporeal system." A tendency to the exercise of affections, and to the excitement of emotions or passions, is called a disposition: in those cases in which the disposition is habitual, and regulates a considerable proportion of the affections or passions, it seems appropriately termed the temper. 71. Respecting the classes of affections, passions, and emotions, we must not here enlarge. It is a most copious and difficult subject; and, as pursued with different objects, different classifications appear preferable. Supposing the object to be, to take these feelings as they are, and to arrange them so as to shew their relation ship, and tendency to affect one another, having in view the phenomena, rather than the causes of them, we should be led to give a decided preference to the elegant arrangement of Dr. Cogan, in his very valuable work on the passions; but if it be to trace them to their sources, in order to shew how they are formed, directly or indirectly, of the relics of sensations, and modified by the various combinations of them, which is an object of the greatest importance, as has been already observed, Dr. Hartley's arrange ment, even if somewhat deficient in philosophical accuracy, as perhaps Dr. Cogan VOL. IX has shown, must have the preference, arrangement of Dr. Cogan is by himself having been founded on that object. The stated as follows: "When the nature of certained, it will be found to respect eithe exciting cause is more accurately asther the selfish or the social principle. forming two different classes. In each Hence arise two important distinctions, and the predominant idea of an evil, will class, the predominant idea of a good, constitute two different orders. The leading passions and affections, under each order, point out the genera. The complicated nature of some of the passions, and other contingent circumstances, may be considered species and varieties under each characteristic genus." Dr. Hartley's arrangement is two-fold: first, the passions and affections in general; secondly, the passions and affections as excited by the different classes of ining the latter, we shall have an opportellectual pleasures and pains. Respecttunity of speaking under the different classes: we shall here briefly state the arrangement of the general passions and tions arise from pleasure and pain, the affections. As all the passions and affecfirst and most general distribution is into love and hatred. When these are excited to a certain degree, they stimulate us to action, and may then be termed desire or aversion, understanding, by the last word, active hatred. Hope and fear of obtaining the good desired, or of avoidarise from the probability or uncertainty love or hatred exerted towards an object ing the evil shunned. Joy and grief are when present, so as to occupy the whole attention of the mind. joy or grief is over, and the object withAfter the actual drawn, there generally remains a pleasing or displeasing recollection, which reof the object, or of the associated ones, curs with every recurrence of the idea and keeps up the love or hatred. These passions or affections, Dr. Hartley conten, five grateful, and five ungrateful, passions of human nature. siders as comprehending all the general OF THE CLASSES OF INTELLECTUAL PLEA- pains are arranged by Hardley into six LI is thrown upon this part of our mental structure by the analysis of them given by Hartley, and it is so much easier to find fault than to improve, that we shall probably do best by taking the arrangement and (with a few passing remarks) the appellations as we find them, and by laying before our readers such a specimen of the analytical investigations of that profound philosopher, as may lay a solid foundation for correct notions on this important point, and lead them to seek for further information in his observations. The intellectual pleasures and pains are, 1. Those of imagination, arising from natural or artificial beauty or deformity. 2. Those of ambition, arising from the opinions of others concerning us. 3. Those of self-interest, arising from the possession or want of the means of happiness, and security from, or subjection to, the hazards of misery. 4. Those of sympathy, arising from the pleasures and pains of others. 5. Those of theopathy, arising from the consideration of the attributes of the Deity, and the relation in which we stand to him; and, 6. Those of the moral sense, arising from the contemplation of moral beauty and deformity. great difference in the preceding and subsequent states of mind, so as to border upon or even enter into the limits of pain) may greatly enhance the pleasure. Uniformity and variety, in conjunction, are also principal sources of the pleasures of beauty, being made so partly by their association with the beauties of nature, partly by that with the works of art, and with the many conveniences which we derive from the uniformity and variety of the works of nature and of art: they must therefore transfer part of the lustre borrowed from the works of nature, and from the conveniences they afford upon the works of nature. Poetry and painting are much employed in setting forth the beauties of the natural world, at the same time that they afford us a high degree of pleasure from other sources: hence they blend some or other of the relics of those other pleasures with those of natural beauty. The many amusements which are peculiar to the country, and whose ideas and pleasures are revived in a faint degree by the view of rural scenes, and so mixed together as to be separately indiscernible, further augment the pleasures suggested by the beauties of nature. To these we may add the opposition be 1. Of the Pleasures and Pains of Imagina- tween the offensiveness, dangers, and mour; nation. 73. This class of feelings may be distinguished into seven kinds: the pleasures arising from the beauty of the natural world; those from the works of art; from the liberal arts of music, painting, and poetry; from the sciences; from the beauty of the person; from wit and huand the pains which arise from gross absurdity, inconsistency, or deformity. As the pleasures of the first class admit of the most simple analysis, we shall select this as a specimen. The pleasant tastes and smells, and the fine colours of fruits and flowers, the melody of birds, and the grateful warmth or cool ness of the air in the proper seasons, transfer the relics of these pleasures upon rural scenes, which rise up instantaneously so mixed with each other, and with such as will immediately be enumerated, as to be separately indiscernible. If there be any object in the scene calculated to excite fear and horror, the nascent ideas of these magnify and enliven all the other ideas, and by degrees pass into pleasures, by suggesting the security from pain. In like manner the grandeur of some scenes, and the novelty of others, by exciting surprise and wonder (that is, by making a corruption of populous cities, and the health, tranquillity, and innocence, which the actual view of the mental contemplation of rural scenes introduces; and the pleasures of sociality and affection, which have many connections with them; and those pleasures which the opinions and encomiums of others respecting natural beauties produce in us, in this, as in other cases, by means of the contagiousness observable in mental, as well as in bodily dispositions. It is also to be remarked, that green, which is the most agreeable to the organ of sight, is the most general colour of the vegetable kingdom, that is, of external nature; but at the same time with so many varieties, that it loses little or none of its effect in producing pleasure, which it would do, if it were all of the same tint. Those persons who have already formed high ideas of the power, knowledge, and goodness of the Author of Nature, with suitable affections, generally feel the exalted pleasures of devotion upon every view and contemplation of his works, either in an explicit and distinct manner, or in a more secret and implicit one: hence part of the general indeterminate pleasures here considered is deducible from the pleasures of theopathy. |