John Wesley Powell

“ Primary consciousness is in the end organ, but it is transmitted by fibrous nerves to the ganglion and finally to the cortex; when it comes to the cortex, the individual, or the ego, is conscious of the same impression. Each ganglion in the hierarchy forms a distinct judgment. The cortex certainly forms judgments for itself and combines them with concepts. The action of the cortex must be concomitant with the making of a judgment, and as the judgment must coalesce with the concept, the part of the cortex involved must be structurally modified thereby. ”

“ Sensation, therefore, produces concepts of kind, and the correlates of likeness and unlikeness are involved. We may define sensation as the cognition of properties as kinds in their effects, and it is a compound of judgments; and a judgment is a combination of a sense impression, a consciousness, a choice, a concept, and a comparison. ”

“ The self, having discovered the union of these manifestations in one body or particle, quickly learns that when one property is observed the others may be expected; thus the color becomes the symbol of the apple and it is known by sight, or the sound becomes the symbol of the apple and it is known by sound, the texture becomes the symbol of the apple and it is known by touch, the flavor becomes the symbol of the apple and it is known by taste, the odor becomes the symbol of the apple and it is known by smell. ”

“ First, we have shown that the essentials of properties are their substrates severally; unity is the substrate of number, extension is the substrate of space, speed is the substrate of motion, consciousness is the substrate of judgment.
Second, we have shown that the quantitative properties are the substrates of the categoric properties; number is the substrate of kind, space is the substrate of form, motion is the substrate of force, time is the substrate of causation, and judgment is the substrate of conception. ”

“ Sensation is a process of forming a judgment of number or of kind and of verifying the same. Verification is accomplished by repetition of the sense impression, or by referring the impression made on one sense to the court of another sense. In a case of judgment of number as distinguished from its correlate kind, man has devised a special method of verification known as measurement, which gives rise to the psychologic science of mathematics, which is also defined as the science of quantity. ”

“ Memory as retention is not a phenomenon of the fifth property called judgment, but of the fourth property called time; but recollection is revival in consciousness and is an intellectual process. To distinguish the fifth property from all the others we may call judgment intellectual and the other properties mechanical. It must be remembered that the judgment cannot exist without the mechanical properties, that is, there can be no judgment without retention or memory. ”

“ Thus the feeling of sound develops into the sense of hearing, which is the sense of causation; for the primordial ego, in the race and in the individual alike, first cognizes causation as speech and distinguishes it from force, for it can cause another to act by speech and it is conscious that it can be caused to act by speech. ”

“ An apple has the taste of an apple, the odor of an apple, the texture of an apple, the pressure of an apple, the sound of an apple when it falls on the ground, and the color of an apple when it is seen. ”

“ In the compounding of judgments by sensation, if one consciousness is inferred to be like another then the present sense impression recalls that other. Thus the judgment of sensation is the judgment of likeness. A succession of judgments of this kind are consolidated in a concept and every additional sense judgment verifies the past sense judgment. When the present sense impression revives a past like sensation, it usually recalls it as integrated and differentiated. ”

“ Here there are two pairs of correlates, self and other, together with cause and effect, and we must distinguish an active consciousness from a passive consciousness. I call it an active consciousness when I am conscious of being a cause, and a passive consciousness when I am conscious of experiencing an effect. ”

“ Every sense mechanically abstracts the impressions which it receives as distinguished from the impressions received from other senses. The eye abstracts sense impressions of light, the ear abstracts sense impressions of sound, the nose abstracts sense impressions of odor, the mouth abstracts sense impressions of taste, the skin abstracts sense impressions of touch, the muscles abstract sense impressions of force, as stress and strain, etc. ”

“ In order that they may be subject to mathematical reasoning, kind must be resolved into number, form into space, force into motion, causation into time and concept into judgment, and then as properties they can all by substitution be represented by number, and thus computation is possible. It is only in the new science of psycho-physics that judgments are treated mathematically. ”

“ It does not comport with our present purpose to examine, either anatomically or physiologically, the nature of the senses themselves; we are simply trying to find out what a sensation is when we consider it as one of a group of like judgments forming a concept.
We see that the sensations are abstracted in that every sense organ recognizes a single property and that for every organ there is a fundamental property. Then we see that the sense impression coming into one organ is classified as like or unlike ”

“ A judgment cannot persist as a pure judgment, for its duration, which is called memory or retention, depends upon the time property of a body which must also have motion, space, and number.
In experimental psychology the mechanical concomitants are the units with which judgments are measured. The science also deals in experiment with the conditions in the object under which judgments are formed. ”

“ A feeling of vibration occurs when the medium, as water or air, is agitated in such manner as to produce sound. This feeling is especially produced in the self by speech; the origin of speech is the calling of the mate, which call is made by one and heard by the other, and hence heard by both. ”

“ In this manner different manifestations of the same object are brought to the senses and integrated or unified as coming from one object, that is, the self learns that one object may have different manifestations; thus the apple exhibits color, sound, pressure, touch, taste, and odor. In this manner concepts are formed of different manifestations of the same body; thus sensation is the cognition of different properties in one body which is considered as a kind. ”

“ We may consider a being so lowly that all its judgments are confined within the sphere of good or evil in the objects of the environment as they are related to itself as food. But if its fixed life were developed into a freely moving life, it would be guided in its search for food by an auxiliary sense of kind ”

“ Alone they fill the world with fallacies; coöperating they give a valid psychology. Introspection has had the field to itself since the days of Aristotle and has filled the world with hallucinations. In these later days science comes with two new methods which, conjoined with the old, give promise of a new and better psychology. ”

“ Its judgment of likeness is repeated in the case of the milk and repeated in the case of the vinegar and these judgments are consolidated, so that the present judgment of likeness is a judgment of likeness to some of the previous cases and of unlikeness to others. The mind does not recall every example to consciousness and compare them severally with the present one, but it recalls the like in a consolidated or fused group if the judgment is that of likeness. ”

“ When I taste I infer that I taste some other thing or object; when I smell I infer that I smell some external thing; when I am touched I infer that I am touched by some external thing; when I am pressed I infer that I am pressed by some external thing ”

“ Maculae acusticea The above functions are divisions of the general function of equilibration: the sense-organs of the ear deal with the equilibrium of the body under all circumstances, both in movement and at rest. ”

“ It has been said that an inference is not a random guess. The guess is always dictated by something in experience as some collateral circumstance, expectation, or interest. We shall hereafter see that interest is the chief, if not the sole, agency in determining the choice. ”

“ We may speak of a body without overtly affirming its properties, but they are implicitly affirmed or posited. The term posit is here used to mean the indirect assertion of something by directly asserting some other thing essential to it and in whose existence it is involved. ”

“ All five are certainly found hi animate bodies. They all coexist and cannot be dissevered, so that when one is cognized the others are implied, and when they are all considered as kind they are subject to logical reasoning. ”

“ Thus quantitative properties and classific properties are reciprocals, and in each set there are five concomitants. The logician considers classes, the mathematician quantities; they thus view the universe from reciprocal sides ”