Some persons will say that we never have a really simple object or content. My definition of sensation does not require the simplicity to be absolutely, but only relatively, extreme. It is worth while in passing, however, to warn the reader against a couple of inferences that are often made. One is that because we gradually learn to analyze so many qualities we ought to conclude that there are no really indecomposable feelings in the mind. The other is that because the processes that produce our sensations are multiple, the sensations regarded as subjective facts must also be compound. To take an example, to a child the taste of lemonade comes at first as a simple quality. He later learns both that many stimuli and many nerves are involved in the exhibition of this taste to his mind, and he also learns to perceive separately the sourness, the coolness, the sweet, the lemon aroma, etc., and the several degrees of strength of each and all of these things.—the experience falling into a large number of aspects, each of which is abstracted, classed, named, etc., and all of which appear to be the elementary sensations into which the original ‘lemonade flavor’ is decomposed. It is argued from this that the latter never was the simple thing which it seemed. I have already criticised this sort of reasoning in Chapter VI (see pp. 170 ff.). The mind of the child enjoying the simple lemonade flavor and that of the same child grown up and analyzing it are in two entirely different conditions. Subjectively considered, the two states of mind are two altogether distinct sorts of fact. The later mental state says ‘this is the same flavor (or fluid) which that earlier state perceived as simple,’ but that does not make the two states themselves identical. It is nothing but a case of learning more and more about the same topics of discourse or things.—Many of these topics, however, must be confessed to resist all analysis, the various colors for example. He who sees blue and yellow ‘in’ a certain green means merely that when green is confronted with these other colors he sees relations of similarity. He who sees abstract ‘color’ in it means merely that he sees a similarity between it and all the other objects known as colors. (Similarity itself cannot ultimately be accounted for by an identical abstract element buried in all the similars, as has been already shown, p. 492 ff.) He who sees abstract paleness, intensity, purity, in the green means other similarities still. These are all outward determinations of that special green, knowledges about it, zufällige Ansichten, as Herbart would say, not elements of its composition. Compare the article by Meiuong in the Vierteliahrschrift für wiss. Phial., XII. 324.

See above, p. 221.

Those who wish a fuller treatment than Martin’s Human Body affords may be recommended to Bernstein’s ‘Five Senses of Man,’ in the International Scientific Series, or to Ladd’s or Wundt’s Physiological Psychology. The completest compendium is L. Hermann’s Handbuch der Physiologie, vol. III.

“ The sensations which we postulate as the signs or occasions of our perceptions” (A. Seth: Scottish Philosophy, p. 89). “Their existence is supposed only because, without them, it would be impossible to account for the complex phenomena which are directly present in consciousness ” (J. Dewey: Psychology, p. 34). Even as great an enemy of Sensation as T. H. Green has to allow it a sort of hypothetical existence under protest. “Perception presupposes feeling ” (Contemp. Review, vol. XXXI. p. 747). Cf. also such passages as those in his Prolegomena to Ethics, §§ 48, 49.—Physiologically, the sensory and the reproductive or associative processes may wax and wane independently of each other. Where the part directly due to stimulation of the sense-organ preponderates, the thought has a sensational character, and differs from other thoughts in the sensational direction. Those thoughts which lie farthest in that direction we call sensations, for practical convenience, just as we call conceptions those which lie nearer the opposite extreme. But we no more have conceptions pure than we have pure sensations. Our most rarefied intellectual states involve some bodily sensibility, just as our dullest feelings have some intellectual scope. Common-sense and common psychology express this by saying that the mental state is composed of distinct fractional parts, one of which is sensation, the other conception. We, however, who believe every mental state to be an integral thing (p. 276) cannot talk thus, but must speak of the degree of sensational or intellectual character, or function, of the mental state. Professor Hering puts, as usual, his finger better upon the truth than any one else. Writing of visual perception, he says: “It is inadmissible in the present state of our knowledge to assert that first and last the same retinal picture arouses exactly the same pure sensation, but that this sensation, in consequence of practice and experience, is differently interpreted the last time, and elaborated into a different perception from the first. For the only real data are, on the one hand, the physical picture on the retina,—and that is both times the same; and, on the other hand, the resultant state of consciousness (ausgelöste Empfindungscomplex) —and that is both times distinct. Of any third thing, namely, a pure senstation thrust between the retinal and the mental pictures, we know nothing. We can then, if we wish to avoid all hypothesis, only say that the nervous apparatus reacts upon the same stimulus differently the last time from the first, and that in consequence the consciousness is different too.” (Hermann’s Hdbch., III. I. 567–8.)

Yet even writers like Prof. Bain will deny, in the most gratuitous way, that sensations know anything. “ It is evident that the lowest or most restricted form of sensation does not contain an element of knowledge. The mere state of mind called the sensation of scarlet is not knowledge, although a necessary preparation for it.” ‘ Is not knowledge about scarlet’ is all that Professor Baiu can rightfully say.

By simple ideas of sensation Locke merely means sensations.

Essay c. H. U., bk. II. ch. XXIII. § 29 ; ch. XXV. § 9.

Op. cit. bk. II. ch. II. § 2.

“ So far is it from being true that we necessarily have as many feelings in consciousness at one time as there are inlets to the sense then played upon, that it is a fundamental law of pure sensation that each momentary state of the organism yields but one feeling, however numerous may be its parts and its exposures. . . . To this original Unity of consciousness it makes no difference that the tributaries to the siugle feeling are beyond the organ. ism instead of within it, in an outside object with several sensible properties, instead of in the living body with its several sensitive functions. . . . The unity therefore is not made by ‘ association’ of several components; but the plurality is formed by dissociation of unsuspected varieties within the unity; the substantive thing being no product of synthesis, but the residuum of differentiation.” (J. Martineau: A Study of Religion (1888), p. 192–4.) Compare also F. H. Bradley, Logic, book I. chap. II.

Such passages as the following abound in anti-sensationalist literature: “Sense is a kind of dull, confused, and stupid perception obtruded upon the soul from without, whereby it perceives the alterations and motions within its own body, and takes cognizance of individual bodies existing round about it, but does not clearly compreliend what they are nor penetrate into the nature of them, it being intended by nature. as Plotinus speaks, not so properly for knowledge as for the use of the body. For the soul suffering under that which it perceives by way of passion cannot master or Conqrcer it, that is to say, know or understand it. For so Anaxagoras in Aristotle very fitly expresses the nature of knowledge and intellection under the notion of Conquering. Wherefore it is necessary, since the mind understands all things, that it should be free from mixture and passion, for this end, as Anaxagoras speaks, that it may be able to master and conquer its objects, that is to say, to know and understand them. In like manner Plotiuus, in his book of Sense and Memory, makes to suffer and to be conquered all one, as also to know and to conquer; for which reason he concludes that that which suffers doth not know. . . . Sense that suffers from external objects lies as it were prostrate under them, and is overcome by them. . . . Sense therefore is a certain kind of drowsy and somnolent perception of that passive part of the soul which is as it were asleep in the body, and acts concretely with it. . . . It is an energy arising from the body and a certain kind of drowsy or sleeping life of the soul blended together with it. The perceptions of which compound, or of the soul as it were half asleep and half awake, are confused, indistinct, turbid, and encumbered cogitations very different from the energies of the noetical part, . . . which are free, clear, serene, satisfactory, and awakened cogitatio...