An attempt to solve some of the difficulties of the Berkleyan controversy, by well-ascertained physiological and psychological facts / by Richard Fowler.

  • Richard Fowler
Date:
[1859]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An attempt to solve some of the difficulties of the Berkleyan controversy, by well-ascertained physiological and psychological facts / by Richard Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    13/24 page 13
    The following facts have led me to hesitate as to the adoption of this opinion :—It cannot be true with re- spect to what we hear, feel, or get a knowledge of from our other organs of sense. It is true that what we hear but do not see excites a retransmission to the eye productive of conceptions of the object heard, as when we hear the neighing of a horse and the lowing of a cow, the laughter or cries of a human being. For instance, Sheridan says of a soldier hearing the cries of his mistress— “But, ere the battle, should he list her cries. The hero trembles, and the lover dies.” Wheii the sound of a cataract is heard at a distance, the fall of the water seems as if seen ; in these cases, the vivid visual conceptions so eclipse the audible impressions that the conceptions they excite are not attended to by the mind, for it is a law of mind that no two impressions or conceptions can be equally attended to at one and the same moment. It must have been this which misled Dr. Reid when he wrote that the mind cannot recall conception of touch. That the blind, who have no visual conception, can recall their conception impressed by touch is, I think, proved by the correctness with which they can walk to distant objects : of this many satisfactory instances may be found in Wilson’s. Biography of the Blind.* There is, * As the blind have merely a perception of the sensation of touch to attend to, and are not diverted from this by any concep- tion of sight, they are more likely to recal the sensation of touch than persons who see, and whose attention is therefore occupied by the more vivid conception of sight, especially when it is con- sidered that the muscular sense is really a part of the sense of touch.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3