SECT. II.

ON THE MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

I Now proceed to assimilate the state of mesmeric sleepwaking itself to our intimate personal convictions, striving to demonstrate that all its phases and phenomena are only intense degrees of known and even ordinary conditions of man. I would render it not only comprehensible, but familiar - not understood merely, but also felt.

I have elsewhere remarked that there are, in the mesmeric state, peculiarities of consciousness, of which I postponed the consideration until I could adduce them as explanatory of mesmeric sleepwaking. To this portion of my subject I now turn my attention. But, before proceeding to demonstrate that the peculiar conditions of mesmeric consciousness arise from novelty of combination - not of principle, it is absolutely essential that I should fix in what sense I use the word consciousness, a precaution the more necessary on account of the different significations which have been attached to it by various metaphysicians; some making it a distinct faculty of the soul, others a necessary accompaniment of every mental operation and in no way to be distinguished from the operation itself.

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Examining, however, whence springs this diversity

of notion respecting consciousness, we find that all the confusion has arisen from this- Consciousness is susceptible of various developments, which have never been properly distinguished into their several grades; one person applying the generic term in question to one only of its specific degrees; another equally restricting it to a different class of its operations. Dr. Thomas Brown, indeed, has some admirable remarks upon the subject, and has well distinguished between the simple consciousness of the moment and remembered consciousness. But he has omitted to observe that there is again a difference between these two actions of consciousness and a third- namely, reflective consciousness, or internal observation. It is true that he once casually observes, "consciousness is only another name for internal observation;" but herein I conceive him to speak with less than his usual accuracy; for consciousness is not another name for internal observation, but internal observation is one of the operations of consciousness, which, as not identical with its parent, should not be involved with it in one common definition. Simply to feel, or simply to pass again through a succession of former feelings with a sense of their relation to one personal identity, is not the same as to be self-regardant and watchful of our own sensations as they arise. Under the last circumstances the mind is manifestly in another state and tone of feeling. Besides, nothing can be clearer than that the mind may act without internal observation, while without simple consciousness it cannot act; since, as

not

Dr. Brown himself logically observes, "The consciousness which we have of our transient thoughts or sensations is nothing more than the thoughts or sensations themselves, which could not be thoughts or sensations if they were not felt." But Dr. Brown errs as much, perhaps, from simplicity, as others from multiplicity, of system. Nothing, indeed, can be more admirable than his view of the mind as a bundle of faculties, but as a unity, capable of passing into various consecutive states. But, had not this great philosopher been as anxious to reduce all mental phenomena whatever to suggestion, as Locke was to compress the world of intellect into the two faculties of sensation and reflection, I think he would have admitted distinctions which his theory caused him to overlook. Nature, however, will not thus be restricted. She is simple, but her effects are manifold; and the very necessities of our language demand as distinctive a reference to her various operations, as if the differences were actual, and of kind, instead of degree. Göthe, in his Morphology of Plants, has beautifully shown that all their various parts are but developments of one original principle; yet what confusion in botany would arise were some naturalists to apply the generic word plant to the leaves, others to the blossoms, of a vegetable! Yet an absurdity as great as this is committed when we apply the generic term consciousness indiscriminately to all the different manifestations, degrees, and varieties of that action of intelligence. The safer plan is to mark difference, where difference can be

discerned, and to give distinct names to distinct developments, whether of matter or of mind. In doing this, however, we have to guard against unnecessary multiplication, and we should never omit to trace the original source amidst the mazes of its various channels. Simplicity of principle-variety of development, these are the points to be kept in view. Thus, while we admit sensation, perception, attention, reflection, to be excellent terms to express certain acts of the mind, we must not forget that these so-called faculties are but different forms and manifestations of consciousness. A little consideration will show that they are truly so.

A sensation of which the mind is not conscious is no sensation at all; neither can we feel without perceiving, nor perceive without, in some degree, attending to that which we perceive. When we say that we attend to a thing, which before we barely perceived, it is not that consciousness, perception, and attention are going on together, but that consciousness has advanced through the stage of perception into that of attention, - attention only expressing a higher degree of consciousness, while reflection, again, indicates a different operation of the same. This last is attention directed towards ourselves, instead of external things; but the principle is unchanged. A reflection is just as much the consciousness of the moment as is a simple sensation.

If it be asked, then, in what sense I use the term consciousness, I answer, as a general expression for every act and state of the mind. I do not say with

Reid that it is "an operation of the understanding" (though I do grant him that it cannot be "logically defined for how can we define existence?), but I affirm that it is the operation, not of the understanding only, but of the whole man. To explain myself still further, I conceive that consciousness stands in the same relation to the mind that physical force does to the body. As the least of our motions implies a degree of the latter, so does the most trifling mental change infer a degree of the former. Let it be remembered, however, that consciousness, like physical force, has no real existence out of the subject that manifests it. Nevertheless, for purposes of analysis, we must not only speak of it separately, but distinguish its various intensity of action. In order to do this, yet as much as possible preserve an unbroken unity, I conceive that the best nomenclature for the varieties of consciousness would be one that should ever recall the primary quality, yet distinguish, by means of epithets, its various manifestations. Omitting its minor developments, I propose, therefore, to classify thus the operations of the agency in question:

Simple consciousness, that is to say, the mind's action in those absent and dreamy moods, when much thought is accompanied by no reflection, and is succeeded by no memory of the subjects of its meditation.

Retrospective consciousness, the mind's action, when it passes through a series of former thoughts