Problems of Life and Mind. Second series by George Henry Lewes (best contemporary novels TXT) 📕

of particular functions, each of which may analytically be treated apart. Vitality is the total of all its physiological functions, and Consciousness the total of all its psychological functions. But inasmuch as it is only in its relation to the whole that each part has functional significance, and cannot therefore be isolated in reality, as it is in theory—cannot live by itself, act by itself, independently of the organism of which it is an organ, there is strict accuracy in saying that no particular sensation can exist without involving Consciousness; for this is only saying that no sensory organ can react without at the same time involving a reaction of the general sensorium. But since this general sensorium is simultaneously affected by various excitations each of which is a force, every sensation, perception, emotion, or volition is a resultant of the composition of these forces; and as there can be only one resultant at a time, to be replaced by another in swift succession, this one represents the state of Consciousness, and this state may or may not be felt under the peculiar mode named “Consciousness,” in its special meaning. In other words, the reaction of a sensory organ is always sentient, but not always consentient.

2. Let us illustrate this by the sensation of musical tone. When we hear a tone we are affected not only by the fundamental tone, representing the vibrations of the sounding body as a whole, but also by the harmonics or overtones, representing the vibrations of the several parts of that whole. It is these latter vibrations which give the tone its timbre, or peculiar quality; and as the harmonics are variable with the variable structure of the vibrating parts, two bodies which have the same fundamental tone may have markedly different qualities. There are some tones which are almost entirely free from harmonics; that is to say, their harmonics are too faint for our ear to appreciate them, though we know that the vibrations must be present. Apply this to the excitations of the sensorium. Each excitation will have its fundamental feeling, and more or less accompanying thrills of other feelings: it is these thrills which are the harmonics, giving to each excitation its specific quality; but they may be so faint that no specific quality is discriminated. A fly settles on your hand while you are writing, the faint thrill which accompanies this excitation of your sensory nerve gives the specific sensation of tickling, and this causes you to move your hand with a jerk. If your attention is preoccupied, you are said to be unconscious of the sensation, and the jerk of your hand is called a reflex action; but if your attention is not preoccupied, or if the thrill is vivid, you are said to be conscious of the sensation, and the action is no longer reflex, but volitional. Obviously here the difference depends not on the sentient excitation by an impression on the nerve, but on the state of the general sensorium and its consequent reaction. Had not the impression been carried to the sensorium, no movement would have followed the fly’s alighting on your hand, because no sensation (sensory reaction) would have been excited; the hypothesis of a purely mechanical reflex is quite inadmissible.

3. Or take another case. It sometimes happens that we fall asleep while some one is reading to us aloud. The sounds of the reader’s voice at first awaken the familiar thrills which give the tones their quality, and the words their significance; but gradually as sleep steals over us, the organism ceases to react thus; the words lose more and more of their significance, the tones lose more and more of their harmonics; at last we pass into the state of unconsciousness—we cease to hear what is read. But do we cease to feel? We have not heard, but we have been affected by the sounds. Not by distinguishable sensations; nevertheless a state of the general Sensibility has been induced. To prove that we have been affected is easy. Let the reader suddenly cease, and if our sleep be not too profound, we at once awake. Now, unless the sound of his voice had affected us, it is clear that the cessation of that could not have affected us. Or let us suppose our sleep to be unbroken by the cessation of the sound; even this will not prove that we have been unaffected by the sounds, it will merely prove that those sounds, or their cessation, did not excite a conscious state. For let the reader, in no louder tone, ask, “Are you asleep?” and we start up, with round eyes, declaring, “Not at all.” Nay, should even this question fail to awaken us, the speaker need only utter some phrase likely to excite a thrill—such as, “There’s the postman!” or, “I smell fire!” and we start up.

I remember once trying the experiment on a wearied waiter, who had fallen asleep in one of the unoccupied boxes of a tavern. His arm rested on the table, and his head rested on his arm: he snored the snore of the weary, in spite of the noisy laughter and talk of the guests. I called out “Johnson,” in a loud tone. It never moved him. I then called “Wilson,” but he snored on. No sooner did I call “waiter,” than he raised his head with a sleepy “yessir.” Now, to suppose, in this case, that he had no sensation when the words “Johnson” and “Wilson” reached his ears, but had a sensation when the word “waiter” reached his ears, is to suppose that two similar causes will not produce a similar effect. The dissyllable “Johnson” would excite as potent a reaction of his sensory organ as the dissyllable “waiter”; but the thrills—the reflex feelings—were different, because the word “Johnson” was not associated in his mind with any definite actions, whereas the word “waiter” was so associated as to become an automatic impulse.231

4. Two sisters are asleep in the same bed, and a child cries in the next room. The sounds of these cries will give a similar stimulus to the auditory nerve of each sister, and excite a similar sensory reaction in each. Nevertheless, the one sister sleeps on undisturbed, and is said not to hear the cry. The other springs out of bed, and attends to the child, because she being accustomed to attend on the child and soothe it when crying, the primary sensation has excited secondary sensations, thrills which lead to accustomed actions. Could we look into the mind of the sleeping sister, we should doubtless find that the sensation excited by the child’s cry had merged itself in the general stream, and perhaps modified her dreams. Let her become a mother, or take on the tender duties of a mother, and her vigilance will equal that of her sister; because the cry will then excite a definite reflex feeling, and a definite course of action. But this very sister, who is so sensitive to the cry of a child, will be undisturbed by a much louder noise; a dog may bark, or a heavy wagon thunder along the street, without causing her to turn in bed.232

Although during sleep the nervous centres have by no means their full activity, they are always capable of responding to a stimulus, and sensation will always be produced. When the servant taps at your bedroom door in the morning, you are said not to hear the tap, if asleep; you do not perceive it; but the sound reaches and rouses you nevertheless, since when the second tap comes, although no louder, you distinctly recognize it. In etherized patients, sensation is constantly observed returning before any consciousness of what is going on returns. “I was called,” says Mr. Potter, “to give chloroform to a lady for the extraction of ten teeth. The first five were extracted without the slightest movement, but as the operation proceeded, sensation returned, and I was obliged to use considerable force to keep her in the chair during the extraction of the last tooth. She came to herself very shortly after, and was delighted to find she had got over all her troubles without having felt it the least in the world.”233

5. We do not see the stars at noonday, yet they shine. We do not see the sunbeams playing among the leaves on a cloudy day, yet it is by these beams that the leaves and all other objects are visible. There is a general illumination from the sun and stars, but of this we are seldom aware, because our attention falls upon the illumined objects, brighter or darker than this general tone. There is a sort of analogy to this in the general Consciousness, which is composed of the sum of sensations excited by the incessant simultaneous action of internal and external stimuli. This forms, as it were, the daylight of our existence. We do not habitually attend to it, because attention falls on those particular sensations of pleasure or of pain, of greater or of less intensity, which usurp a prominence among the objects of the sensitive panorama. But just as we need the daylight to see the brilliant and the sombre forms of things, we need this living Consciousness to feel the pleasures and the pains of life. It is therefore as erroneous to imagine that we have no other sensations than those which we distinctly recognize—as to imagine that we see no other light than what is reflected from the shops and equipages, the colors and splendors which arrest the eye.

The amount of light received from the stars may be small, but it is present. The greater glory of the sunlight may render this starlight inappreciable, but it does not render it inoperative. In like manner the amount of sensation received from some of the centres may be inappreciable in the presence of more massive influences from other centres; but though inappreciable it cannot be inoperative—it must form an integer in the sum.

6. The reader’s daily experience will assure him that over and above all the particular sensations capable of being separately recognized, there is a general stream of Sensation which constitutes his feeling of existence—the Consciousness of himself as a sensitive being. The ebullient energy which one day exalts life, and the mournful depression which the next day renders life a burden almost intolerable, are feelings not referable to any of the particular sensations, but arise from the massive yet obscure sensibilities of the viscera, which form so important a part of the general stream of Sensation. Some of these may emerge into distinct recognition. We may feel the heart beat, the intestines move, the glands secrete; anything unusual in their action will force itself on our attention.

“What we have been long used to,” says Whytt, “we become scarcely sensible of; while things which are new, though much more trifling, and of weaker impression, affect us remarkably. Thus he who is wont to spend his time in the country is surprisingly affected, upon first coming into a populous city, with the noise and bustle which prevail there: of this, however, he becomes daily less sensible, till at length he regards it no more than they who have been used to it all their lifetime. The same seems to be the case also with what passes within our bodies. Few persons in health feel the beating of their heart, though it strikes against their ribs with considerable force every second; whereas the motion of a fly upon one’s face or hands occasions a very sensible and uneasy titillation. The pulsation of the great aorta itself is wholly unobserved by us; yet the unusual beating of a small artery in any of the fingers becomes very