Elements of the philosophy of the human mind / by Dugald Stewart.

  • Dugald Stewart
Date:
1854
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of the philosophy of the human mind / by Dugald Stewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    motion of the intestines, etc.] If it be admitted, say these phi- losophers, that there are instances in which we will an effect, without being able to make it an object of attention, is it not possible that, what we commonly call the vital and involuntary motions, may be the consequences of our own thought and voli- tion? But there is surely a wide difference between those cases, in which the mind was at first conscious of thought and volition, and gradually lost the power of attending to them, from the growing rapidity of the intellectual process; and a case in which the effect itself is perfectly unknown to the bulk of man- kind, even after they arrive at maturity, and in which this effect has continued to take place with the most perfect regularity, from the very beginning of their animal existence, and long be- fore the first dawn of either reflection or experience. Some of the followers of Stahl have stated the fact rather in- accurately, even in respect to our habitual exertions. Thus Dr. Porterfield, in his Treatise on the Eye, is at pains to prove that the soul may think and will without knotvledge or consciousness. But this, I own, is to me inconceivable. The true state of the fact, I apprehend is, that the mind may think and will, without attending to its thoughts and volitions, so as to be able afterwards to recollect them. Nor is this merely a verbal criticism; for there is an important difference between consciousness and at- tention, which it is very necessary to keep in view, in order to think upon this subject with any degree of precision.* The one is an involuntary state of the mind; the other is a voluntary act; the one has no immediate connection with memory; but the other is so essentially subservient to it, that, without some degree of it, the ideas and perceptions which pass through the mind, seem to leave no trace behind them, f * The distinction between attention and consciousness is pointed out by Dr. JEteM. Attention is a voluntary act; it requires an active exertion to begin and to continue it, and it may be continued as long as we will; but consciousness is involuntary, and of no continuance, changing with every thought. t [Here, and elsewhere, Stewart assumes too absolutely, that every act cr movement is either entirely voluntary or entirely involuntary. But the 6*
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