Judgments. Products of Judgment- Propositions. Sentences. Self, as Reason, discerns Conclusions through the Medium of Premises.-Because we think propositions together and thus discern conclusions, reasons are called syllogisms. Because we establish truth by proofs, reasons are called arguments and formal proofs. How simple and yet how wonderful are these powers! Man thinks-is rational. Man thinks-gains a mastery over the material world. to solve the problem of the universe. As the digestive organs elaborate food into bones, muscles, and nerves, so the thinking faculties elaborate our acquisitions into concepts, judgments, and reasons. Forms of Thinking and Faculties of Thought." There are three distinct forms of thinking, and consequently three distinct faculties of thought, which may be defined as follows: Conception is the faculty of the mind by which we form our general abstract notions, or concepts. 66 Judgment is the faculty of the mind by which we know the relation between two objects of knowledge. "Reason is the faculty of the mind by which we gain new truth from truth already known." * Original and Manufactured Knowledge.-All our knowledge is original or manufactured. Original knowledge has three sources: Sense-intuition, conscious-intuition, and noumenal-intuition. Senseintuition is our power to gain original knowledge of the external world. Conscious-intuition is our capability to gain original knowl * Dunton. edge of the mental world. Noumenal-intuition is our power to gain necessary ideas. Through these three sources we gain all the elements of knowledge. The soul, out of original elements, manufactures higher forms of knowledge. We so combine these elements as to produce things unheard of before in earth or heaven; this is the work of self, as imagination. We discern class-relations and group resembling things into classes, and thus gain general notions; this is the work of self, as conception. We discern truth-relations and think notions into propositions; this is the work of self, as judgment. We discern cause-relations and reach conclusions through judgments; this is the work of self, as reason. Self, as memory, reproduces, unchanged, all forms of knowledge. Memories are merely reproductions of our acquisitions, both original and manufactured. Last Words of Physiological Psychology.-"Physiological Psychology investigates the phenomena of human consciousness from the physiological point of view. It finds a marvelous material mechanism called the nervous system, and it describes the effects of external and internal stimuli upon molecular nerve-substance. It is pre-eminently experimental, then speculative, but never demonstrative. Whatever changes take place in the nerve-substance, in the process of starting and communicating nerve-commotion, are invisible and impalpable. Connections between different cerebral areas and their functions are so complex and subtile that it may be doubted whether physiological psychology will ever succeed in completely disentangling them. We know certain of the physical conditions and concomitants of soul action, but mental phenomena can not be conceived of as identical with the molecular motion of the nervous mass; nor can the phenomena of consciousness be conceived of as the product of the brain. The conclusion is a logical as well as a psychological necessity: The subject of all states of consciousness is a real unit-being called mind, which is of non-material nature, and acts and develops according to laws of its own, but is specially correlated with certain material molecules and masses, forming the substance of the brain. Physical Basis of Thought.—“ A scientific physiology of the cerebral hemispheres does not exist, nor is it at the present a matter for even hopeful anticipation. In studying the higher mental phenomena, physiological psychology is obliged almost wholly to adopt the methods of the old psychology and accept the facts of consciousness. We decline to discuss the physical basis of the logical faculties, as there is absolutely no scientific ground on which to base such a discussion. The inability of psychological science to conceive of any physical process which can be correlated with the acts of conceiving, judging, and reasoning, is complete. We are forced to make the same humiliating admission as to memory and imagination and choice and intuition and conscience."* Reason and Unity. - Infinite Reason planned the universe. Everything, from the atom to a system of worlds, is related by dependencies. Cause and effect, means and ends, antecedents and consequents, unite all into one unity. Endowed with Reason, we can think the thoughts of God after him. Reason, through interlocked Judgments, discerns cause relations. In its work, Reason lays under contribution all our other capabilities. All are its servants, subject to its supervision. We fashion our percepts-Reason is there; we remember and imagineReason is there; we form judgments-Reason is there; we feel emotions of truth and beauty and duty-Reason is there; we choose and act-behold, Reason is there. Not to educate Reason is to leave man to grope in a sea of hopeless mystery. To the unthinking, the universe is a maze without a plan, and life is not worth living. As reason grows, all things begin to assume proportion and harmony. Substances, forces, laws, conditions, dependencies; cause, space, duration; rational beings, brutes, plants, worlds; all things fall into rhythm and make for us the music of the spheres. * Ladd, "Physiological Psychology." PART V. THE FEELINGS. CHAPTER XVIII.-THE INSTINCTS. XIX. THE PHYSICAL FEELINGS. THE APPETITES. XX. THE EMOTIONS.-EGOISTIC EMOTIONS. XXI. THE EMOTIONS.-ALTRUISTIC EMOTIONS. |