The senses and the intellect.

  • Bain, Alexander, 1818-1903.
Date:
1885
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The senses and the intellect. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    such as the air, we record them in the best language we can obtain, by comparison with the more palpable phenomena of solids and fluids. We find that the air is inert, and has weight; that it is elastic, like a spring; but that it is extremely light. Trying other gases we find similar properties to hold good. When, however, we experiment on the visible vapour of water, we find an absence of the elastic property belonging to air and invisible steam; in fact, this substance has nothing in common with aeriform bodies, but lightness or tenuity: and, in the exercise of our best discretion, we think it right to exclude it from the group, and embrace together only those that have the property of elasticity, or spontaneous expansion, constituting this the defining mark, or the abstract idea of the class. By a similar process of groping experiment, and the exercise of judgment, the scientific world has arrived at abstract conceptions of the subtle properties expressed by Heat, Electricity, Chemical affinity, Cell-reproduction, &c. The definitions of these attributes are constructions labo- riously worked out. Nevertheless, the means of effecting them, so far as intellect is concerned, is still by the ordinary laws of association, which bring up to the view various facts, expressions and comparisons, in order to make tentative com- binations ; and these are gradually improved upon, as their unsuitability to the particular phenomena is discovered on examination. An intellect well versed in the kind of con- ceptions necessary, and acting vigorously in the reviving of these by association, is naturally qualified for the work. Next to this, there is required a clear perception of the subject to be seized, for unless we are able to judge accurately of the fitness of the constructions proposed we shall rest satisfied with something far short of the truth. In every kind of endeavour this power of judging clearly is indispensable ; without it the most copious intellectual resources are wasted to no purpose. Possessing thus the material of the construction and a clear sense of the fitness or unfitness of each new tentative, there is needed nothing but patience, or as Newton termed Q Q