Mind and Motion and MonismLongmans, Green, and Company, 1895 - 170 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
able Absolute Volition adjustments agent Agnosticism animal answer appears becomes belongs bodily action bodily movement body cause of bodily cerebral hemispheres Clifford complex conceive connexion conscious volition consciousness conservation of energy consider constitute determined doctrine ejective energy existence explanation external world fact feeling GEORGE JOHN ROMANES grey matter Hence Hobbes human mind hypothesis impossible infer kind knowledge logical macrocosm materialists matter in motion mechanical mental changes mental processes merely mind and motion modes moral responsibility motive muscles natural causation necessarily necessity nerve nerve-centres nervous neurosis objective obverse Pantheism perceive phenomena philosophical physical causation physiology possible present principle of causality proved psychical psychism psychology psychosis question reason Rede Lecture reflex action regard relation Relative Volition sense spiritualistic subjectivity supposed take place Theism theory of Materialism theory of Monism theory of Spiritualism theory of things thinking thought tion ultimate uncaused vibration whole world-eject
Popular passages
Page 64 - ... the passage from the current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is thinkable, and that we entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of the problem. But the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought, and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously ; we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass, by a process...
Page 38 - IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free ; The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration...
Page 123 - In other words, those races of beings only can have survived in which, on the average, agreeable or desired feelings went along with activities conducive to the maintenance of life, while disagreeable and habitually-avoided feelings went along with activities directly or indirectly destructive of life; and there must ever have been, other thing!
Page 48 - ... since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first eternal thinking being should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought : though, as I think, I have proved, lib.
Page 31 - And though it be called prudence, when the event answereth our expectation, yet, in its own nature, it is but presumption. For the foresight of things to come, which is providence, belongs only to him by whose will they are to come. From him only, and supernaturally, proceeds prophecy.
Page 2 - And because going, speaking, and the like voluntary motions, depend always upon a precedent thought of whither, which way, and what; it is evident, that the imagination is the first internal beginning of all voluntary motion.
Page 64 - Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be ; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, " How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness Í" The chasm between...
Page 19 - For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the artificer?
Page 1 - The cause of sense, is the external body, or object, which presseth the organ proper to each sense, either immediately, as in the taste and touch ; or mediately, as in seeing, hearing, and smelling...
Page 151 - Since, therefore, whatsoever is the first eternal being must necessarily be cogitative; and] whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily contain in it, and actually have, at least, all the perfections that can ever after exist; nor can it ever give to another any perfection that it hath not either actually in itself, or, at least, in a higher degree; [it necessarily follows, that the first eternal being cannot be matter.] 1 1 . Therefore, there has been an Eternal Wisdom.