On the state of the mind during sleep, etc. : a paper read to the physiological section of the British Association, on the sixth of September, 1852 / by R. Fowler.

  • Richard Fowler
Date:
1852
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the state of the mind during sleep, etc. : a paper read to the physiological section of the British Association, on the sixth of September, 1852 / by R. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Hence it is that to learn the right use of any cor¬ poreal function we must do the action we are required to know. The recruit has, it is true, locomotion, but a long drill is required before he can walk. [Sir Charles Bell has furnished the best materials that I have met with for a satisfactory solution of the long-discussed question as to the active or passive state of the mind in the functions of sensation and perception.] Would it not therefore be more correct to say “ conscio,” or “ sentio ergo sum,” rather than “ cogito, ergo sum,” with Descartes. Consciousness of existence is intuitive, but we must learn to interpret our perceptive sensations ; and, as to thinking, many pass their lives in such a state of reverie between sleeping and waking, as never to have been at the trouble to work out a thought. Lucretius says of such a man—“ Qui stertis vigilans nec somnia cernere eessas.” By the muscular sense the mind is apprised of the state of the muscles by which adjustments for speaking or thinking are formed, and it interprets these adjustments as the observer of the needle at the extremity of the electro-telegraphic wire interprets its adjustments into the thoughts communicated at the beginning of the wire. It must have been thus that Campanella interpreted the thoughts of others by adjusting his lips and the expression of his features the retina, in that unsatisfactory degree which is the effect of its striking any part but the centre, there is an effort made to direct the axis towards it, or, in other words, to receive the rays from it upon the more sensible centre. It is this sensibility, therefore, conjoined with the action of the muscles of the eye-ball, which produces the constant searching motion of the eye ; so that, in effect, from the lesser sensibility of the retina generally, arises the necessity for this exercise of the organ ; and to this may be attributed its high perfections.—Sir Chas. Bell on “ The Hand.”
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