Select discourses on the functions of the nervous system : in opposition to phrenology, materialism, and atheism : to which is prefixed a lecture on the diversities of the human character arising from physiological peculiarities / by John Augustine Smith.

  • Smith, John Augustine, 1782-1865.
Date:
1840
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Select discourses on the functions of the nervous system : in opposition to phrenology, materialism, and atheism : to which is prefixed a lecture on the diversities of the human character arising from physiological peculiarities / by John Augustine Smith. 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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    fore, a right understanding must, primarily, be had. We shall begin with the first. The expression to feel is ordinarily applied to sen- sations which have not a great deal in common. Thus we say, we feel happy, cold, &c. In the controversy in which we are engaged, it refers to ideas derived strictly from the Sense of Touch. In the foregoing part of the Lecture, when describing this sense, I mentioned that it is, in some measure, dif- fused over the whole body. Hence, as may be well imagined, impressions, from this source, career through the mind in a continuous current. Myriads of them, of course, are never attended to, while those, which be- come objects of consciousness, immediately undergo a species of transformation. The primary sensation is con- verted into a secondary perception, and this being done, the mind instantly, and further proceeds to draw an in- ference. But these two last mental operations must not be confounded with the first. For that is the cause, while they are its effects, and one is a mere state of the mind, while the others refer to something external to the percipient power, and of a character widely different. When, therefore, the Materialists say, they feel mat- ter, they couple a fact, the being conscious* of a sensa- * Consciousness, it must be recollected, is always restricted, in discussions like this, to our being aware of the present existence of a sensation, and excludes every subsequent affection of the mind. Thus defined, it obviously cannot be otherwise than true, while perceptions, and inferences, which are frequently confounded with it, may be, and as we shall hereafter see, are, occasionally, false.