Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- BOOK I GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY
- CHAPTER I OF THE GENERAL RELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY
- CHAPTER II OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS
- CHAPTER III OF ATTENTION
- CHAPTER IV OF SENSATION
- CHAPTER V OF PERCEPTION AND INSTINCT
- CHAPTER VI OF IDEATION AND IDEO-MOTOR ACTION
- CHAPTER VII OF THE EMOTIONS
- CHAPTER VIII OF HABIT
- CHAPTER IX OF THE WILL
- BOOK II SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY
- APPENDIX. DR. FERRIER'S EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES ON THE BRAIN
- INDEX
CHAPTER V - OF PERCEPTION AND INSTINCT
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- BOOK I GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY
- CHAPTER I OF THE GENERAL RELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND BODY
- CHAPTER II OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS
- CHAPTER III OF ATTENTION
- CHAPTER IV OF SENSATION
- CHAPTER V OF PERCEPTION AND INSTINCT
- CHAPTER VI OF IDEATION AND IDEO-MOTOR ACTION
- CHAPTER VII OF THE EMOTIONS
- CHAPTER VIII OF HABIT
- CHAPTER IX OF THE WILL
- BOOK II SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY
- APPENDIX. DR. FERRIER'S EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES ON THE BRAIN
- INDEX
Summary
158. Neither the operations of the Intellectual Powers, nor the higher Emotional states, are immediately called-forth by Sensations; for in that stage of consciousness we merely recognize the fact that certain changes have occurred in our own “subjective” state, and do not refer these changes to any external or “objective” source. Of such a limitation, we occasionally meet with examples among the phenomena of Sleep, and in some of the conditions resulting from the use of Anæsthetic agents : for if we fall asleep whilst suffering from bodily pain, we may entirely lose all perception of the cause of that pain, and yet remain conscious of a perturbed state of feeling, which may affect the course of our dream; and when a surgical operation is performed in a state of incomplete anaesthesia, it is obvious that pain is felt without any distinct consciousness of its source, and the patient may subsequently describe his state as an uneasy dream. Such, it is probable, is the condition of the infant at the commencement of its Psychical life. “If,” as has been well remarked by Dr. J. D. Morell {Philosophy of Religion, p. 7), “we could by any means transport ourselves into the mind of an Infant before the Perceptive consciousness is awakened, we should find it in a state of absolute isolation from everything else in the world around it. Whatever objects may be presented to the Eye, the Ear, or the Touch, they are treated simply as subjective feelings, without the Mind's possessing any consciousness of them as objects at all.
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- Principles of Mental PhysiologyWith their Applications to the Training and Discipline of the Mind, and the Study of its Morbid Conditions, pp. 176 - 219Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1874