The Press. — London, England, 1856-09-27 00:00:00

SEPT. 27, 1856. Lary system. though doubtless they have a purpose to fulfil. , The work is eminently fitted for the library. A s a pure physicist, Arago had no superior, and it is impossible to read his lucid develop ment of the higher phenomena of Nature without being instructed and pleased in an almost equal degree by the great truths un folded and by the lucid demonstration with which they are in a manner beaten and rivetted into the reader's mind. 1. The Senses and the Intellect. By A. Bain, M.A. London: J. W. Parker and Son. 2. The Science of Mind. By H. Hill. London: Longmans. (Second Notice.) Ws return for a short space to this subject, as our remarks last week seem to have been mis understood. The objections urged to them are of two kinds, very opposite to each other. They are said to incline to materialism, inas much as it was argued that mental philosophy should be based on nervous organisation ; and to favour ultra-idealism, as all sensation was said to reside within us. The latter charge is the most strongly urged. In referring tastes, odours, sounds, and vision wholly to their respective organs (as ordinarily we refer sensations of pain to the body and not to the external objects which affect it injuriously), we had not the least thought of doubting, with Berkely, the existence of matter. On the • contrary, we said that the existence of matter—as substance or form— was the first and most direct act of conscious• ness. We observe that in Mr. Bain's volume the opinion of Mill (one of the most acute of our metaphysicians) is quoted, that resistance (which is but the perception of matter) is of primary importance to us. Mill remarks:— There is no feeling of our nature of more importance to us than that of resistance. Of all our sensations it is the most unintennitted ; for whether we sit, or lie, or stand, or walk, still the feeling a resistance is present to us. Everyth ng we touch at the same time resists; and every thing we hear, see, taste, or smell, suggests the idea of some. thing that resists. It is through the medium of resistance that every act by which we subject to our use the objects and laws of nature is performed. And of the complex state% of emsciousness there is hardly one in which the feeling or idea of resistance is not included. We do but carry the principle, so acutely enunciated by Mill, into practical effect, when we refer all the varied sensations of our organi sation to resistance,—that is, to a sense of touch. Go to the bottom of all our sensa tions, and wo find nothing but resistance or touch. As we said last week, the tongue is touched by substances of peculiar form, and hence the varied sensations of taste ; the nose is touched by the forms of particles issuing from particular substances, and hence all our sensations of odour ; the ear is touched by pulsations of air, which produce (primarily through the fine mechanism of the ear) all the infinite varieties of sound of which we are conscious ; and the eye is touched by light (that light being physically affected iu some way as yet inexplicable to us by external sub stances), and hence all our experience of vision. In each case it is matter, and matter alone, which occasions sensation; it is resistance, or touch, which is concerned in every act of sen sation. Of the existence of matter itself we are certain by all the evidence of consciousness. All our faculties testify to it ; and we are, as Mill says, continually reminded of its pre sence. But no matter, if our view be correct, has in itself either taste, or odour, or sound, or colour. It has shape, and it has degrees of hardness and softness, but the other qualities which we associate with matter (as we associate the tones of a violin with the instrument) are, it is probable, not in- herent in matter, but are the effects of its par ticular varieties of substance on our exqui sitely constructed organs o f sense . A s , i n a spiritual sense, the kingdom of God is said to be within us—in a philosophical sense, all the beauty and harmony of the universe may be said to reside in our constitution. This conclusion seems to result naturally from any analytical examination of the organs of sense. We instanced last week one of the grossest. It cannot be doubted that the THE PRESS. palate is touched by substances. The effect produced is a physical effect, and the nerves of taste receive a peculiar shock or sensation. That sensation is perhaps caused by the form of the substance in contact with tho palate, or perhaps by some chemical agency resulting from the partial dissolution of the substance. But whether by one or the other, the primary effect is merely to cause a slight degree of irritation to the tongue and throat.. All the rest results from the constitution of the organ of taste, and the nervous system there with connected. To our apprehension, the senses resemble those endowments of magic tales which turn whatever is touched or seen, how coarse or valueless soever, to things of worth and beauty. A barren heath becomes a garden of delight, stones are turned to brilliant gems, the air is filled with harmony, and decrepit old wayfarers appear as celestial visitants to earth. It is confirmatory of this view that in proportion as the natural acuteness of the senses is improved by cultivation, new worlds are opened to them. Every one has remarked the exquisite susceptibility to which any one of the senses may be brought by continual cul tivation. Even the perception of natural beauty, which appears the most obvious of perceptions, is greatly the effect of cultiva tion. When the Duke of Argyle walks with Jennie Deans in Richmond park, the duke points to the beauty of the landscape, but Jennie's reply is, " It's braw rich feeding for " the cows, and they have a fine breed o' cattle " here." We know well that a century ago scarcely any one thought of visiting the most picturesque part of these islands for the sake of their beauties. The cultivation of harmony is more striking still. The difference is hardly greater in the case of a man who being born blind has his eyes opened to a sense of vision, than is the case of one who has his ear culti vated to a perception of the ideas of the great masters of harmony. This inherent faculty of improvement is common to the other senses. Blind persons have even been said to have ac quired such delicacy of touch as to distinguish colours by their feel—a striking evidence, if the fact can be relied on, that different colours have different forms or substances, which we may suppose either to act on the ether or gas, which we term light, and to modify the combination of its rays. or throw them with greater or less velocity on the eye. How far the illuminating property of light may be the result of the organisation of the eye can in the present state of our knowledge be only subject for conjecture. On the whole question we have no wish to dogmatise. As one recompense against the necessarily superficial character of periodical literature, it belongs to it to throw out those suggestions which occur to the mind on the mullifitrious topics which engage the re viewer's attention; and it is for minds with more leisure, to letermine what those suggestions are worth, and to work lodes of thought which are really worth the labour of regular and scientific prosecution. Should it be said that practically it is the same thing whether the properties which are ordinarily ascribed to matter do really reside in it, or reside in the organs of sense which aro affected by particles of matter in a peculiar manner, we reply that for all purposes of phi losophical inquiry we can never be too accu rate both in our conceptions and our language. We can fancy that in Galileo's time it might have been said that it was useless to dispute whether the sun moved round the earth, or the earth round the sun, as the effect was the same ; yet it was not till the true theory of the Sidereal system was established that great progress was made in astronomy, and great practical results obtained. It. is extremely probable that truths of great importance might be arrived at by a systematic inquiry of the extent to which sensation is due to the constitution of the organs of sense. In any case, their exquisite delicacy of struc• ture, and most wonderful acuteness of per ception, must move admiration am often as contemplated. In surveying any great collec tion of the triumphs of art, such as was lately brought together in the Hyde-park Industrial Palace, the first impression ou the mind is 929 of that depressing character which persons from the country commonly experience at finding themselves in the throng and tumult of a great city. How insignificant is one per son among so many thousands, and how trifling one person's acquirements in the midst of the world's collective skill. But with a just per ception of the structure of his own senses, the humblest member of a community may survey all the triumphs that human art and industry have achieved. and glory in the re flection that all are as nothing compared with the instruments which he bears about with him, to confer on the whole external world of matter a beauty and utility not its own. To the other charge that our views favour materialism, we have only to reply that it has pleased our Creator to connect in some way the operations of intellect with the operations of matter : and that it would be folly, or worse, to ignore the fact, as there is at all times a kind of impiety in rejecting truth. It is the wiser part to trace this connection as far as we can. It is the less necessary for us to critically examine that portion of Mr. Bain's volume which relates to the intellect, as we find nothing in it essentially different from the teaching of former professors of philosophy. Much of his reasoning is highly acute ; but on such a subject the style seems to us not so close as is desirable. On the general question of the intellect and its ideas, we retain the views formerly expressed in these columne. We regard the intellect as a great capacity or power, fitted to acquire information (ideas) from its instruments, the senses, and to incoi porate that information with itself. This great capacity we conceive to act according to hte s established with its constitution. It must reason and act in obedience to its constitution. It perceives things to be so—as, for example, the trut Its of mathematical science—and cannot help, by its very constitution, so perceiving them. But between this obedience to the laws of its nature, and the doctrine of innate ideas, there is, we apprehend, a wide distinc tion. Certain ideas may be natural to it, from the fact that when once presented to it they are received with absolute conviction ; but of such ideas it may remain for ever ignorant, through their never having been presented to it. That the intellect should receive ideas through its agents, the senses, is a condition necessary to its activity; its inherent power might otherwise never be called into exercise ; but there is nothing whatever to lead us to believe that when its attainments are united to its power, they can he disunited or annihi lated. There are strong proofs of the immor tality of the mind to be derived from its con stitution, and those, perhaps, we may take some other opportunity of bringing forward. The arguments by which Mr. Bain seeks to establish inherent muscular activity are in genious, and to some extent form the basis of his system. We may, however conceive evils human instruments so delicately constructed as to be perpetually in motion without assign ing to them a life of their own The mercury in the tube of a barometer, for instance, we imagine to be continually in movement, though the movement is too slight to be per ceptible to observation. In like manner we may suppose the muscles to be continually acted on by influences connected with, though external to, them, and hence their unceasing activity. Mr. Bain promises another volume. We hope the encouragement afforded to thi•.; able dissertation will be sufficient to induce him to execute his purpose with as little delay as is expedient , and we would particularly im press on him the importance of being copious in his collection of facts and authorities. CONTEMPORARY POETRY. Ix a previous number of this Journal we glanced briefly at the causes which generate so plentiful a crop of poets of a particular character at the precise stage of civilisation we have now reached—a stage in which we witness a wide diffusion and a high standard of intellectual culture ; while the dis coveries of science have superseded, but not 3et destroyed, our masculine energy and our adven turous spirit. In the batch of volumes we have selected for present notice the exceptions to the general description we then offered to our readers are, we regret to say, very scanty. The tast