Chapter Xii We Shall See a Little Deeper Into What This Distinction,

between the mere mental having or feeling of an object and the thinking of it, portends.

The mental states usually distinguished as feelings are the emotions, and the sensations we get from skin, muscle, viscus, eye, ear, nose, and palate. The 'thoughts,' as recognized in popular parlance, are the conceptions and judgments. When we treat of these mental states in particular we shall have to say a word about the cognitive function and value of each. It may perhaps be well to notice now that our senses only give us acquaintance with facts of body, and that of the mental states of other persons we only have conceptual knowledge. Of our own past states of mind we take cognizance in a peculiar way. They are 'objects of memory,' and appear to us endowed with a sort of warmth and intimacy that makes the perception of them seem more like a process of sensation than like a thought.

FOOTNOTES:

Messrs. Payton Spence (Journal of Spec. Phil., x, 338, xiv, 286) and M. M. Garver (Amer. Jour. of Science, 3d series, xx, 189) argue, the one from speculative, the other from experimental grounds, that, the physical condition of consciousness being neural vibration, the consciousness must itself be incessantly interrupted by unconsciousness--about fifty times a second, according to Garver.

That the appearance of mental activity here is real can be proved by suggesting to the 'hypnotized' somnambulist that he shall remember when he awakes. He will then often do so.

For more details, cf. Malebranche, Rech. de la Verité, bk. iii, chap. i; J. Locke, Essay conc. H. U., book iii, ch. i; C. Wolf, Psychol. rationalis, § 59; Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaph.,