Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/371

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MIND


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MIND


ladies; 142 parish schools with 33,279 pupils, four orphan asylums with 401 orphans, one infant asylum, one industrial school for girls, one deaf-mute asylum, one home for boys, one school for feeble-minded, nine hospitals and sanatoriums, two homes for aged poor, and one home for girls. The Catholic population of the archdiocese is estimated at about 238.000.

The MetTopolitan Catholic Almanac and Laity's Directory (Baltimore); Wiltzids, Catholic Directory (Milwaukee); The Catholic Church in Wisconsin (Milwaukee, 1895); Memoirs of Milwaukee County (Madison, 1909); M.\rty, Johann Martin Henni, erster Bischof und Erzbischof von Milwaukee (New York, 1888) ; Rainer, A Noble Priest, Joseph Sahmann, Founder of the Salesianum, tr. from the German by Berg (Milwaukee, 1903); Abbelen, Die Ehrwuerdige Mutter Caroline Fries (St. Louis, 1892).

J. Rainer.

Mind (Gk. coCs; Lat. mens: Ger. Geist, Seek; Ft. Ame, ettprit). — The word mind has been used in a variety of meanings in English, and we find a similar want of fixity in the connotation of the corresponding terms in other languages. Aristotle tells us that .Anaxagoras, as compared with other early Greek philosophers, appeared like one sober among drunken men in that he introduced mSs, mind, as efficient cause of the general order in the universe. In treating of the soul, .Aristotle himself identifies mOs with the intellectual faculty, which he conceives as partly active, partly passive (see Intellect). It is the thinking principle, the highest and most spiritual energy of the soul, separable from the body, and im- mortal. The Latin word, mens, was employed in much the same sense. St. Thomas, who represents the gen- eral scholastic usage, derives mens from melior (to measure). He identifies mens with the hiunan soul viewed as intellectual and abstracting from lower or- ganic faculties. Angels, or pure spirits, may thus be called minds (De Veritate, X, a. 1). For Descartes the human soul is simply mens, res cogitans, mind. It stands in complete opposition to the body and to matter in general. The vegetative faculties allotted to the soul by Arktotle and the Schoolmen are rejected by him, and those vital functions are explained by him mechanically. The lower animals do not possess minds in any sense; they are for him mere machines. An early usage in English connects the word mind closely with memory, as in the sentence "to bear in mind". Again it has been associated with the volitional side of our nature, as in the phrases " to mind " and " to have a mind to effect something". Still when restricted to a particular faculty the general tendency has been to identify mind with the cognitive and more especially with the intellectual powers. In this usage it more closely corresponds to the primary meaning of the Latin mens, understood as the thinking or judging principle. Mind is also conceived as a substantial being, equivalent to the scholastic mens, partly identi- fied with, partly distinguished from the soul. If we define the soul as the principle within me, by which I feel, think, will, and by which my body is animated, we may provide a definition of mind of fairly wide acceptance by merely omitting the last clause. That is, in this usage mind designates the soul as the source of conscious life, feeling, thought, and volition, ab- straction being made from the vegetative functions. On the other hand the term soul emphasizes the note of substantiality and the property of animating principle.

In the English psychological literature of the last century there has indeed been exhibited a most re- markable timidity in regard to the use of the term "soul". Whilst in German at all events the word Seele has been in general acceptance among psycholo- gists, the great majority of English writers on mental life completely shun the use of the corresponding Eng- lish word, as seemingly perilous to their philosophical reputation. Even the most orthodox representatives of the Scotch school rigorously boycotted the word, sp X.— 21


that " the nature and attributes of the Human Mind ", came to be recognized as the proper designation of the subject-matter of psychology, even amongst those who believed in the reality of an immaterial principle, as the source of man's conscious life. However, the spread of the positivist or phenomenalist view of the science of psychology has resulted in a very widely adopted identification of mind merely with the con- scious states, ignoring any principle or subject to which these states belong. The mind in this sense is only the sum of the conscious processes or activities of the individual with their special modes of operating. This, however, is a quite inadequate conception of the mind. It may, of course, be convenient and quite legitimate for some purposes to investigate certain activities or operations of this mind or soul, without raising the ultimate question of the metaphysical nature of the principle or substance which is the basis and source of these phenomena ; and it may also serve as a useful economy of language to employ the term mind, merely to designate mental life as a stream of consciousness. But the adoption of this phraseology must not cause us to lose sight of the fact that along with the action there is the agent, that underlying the forms of mental behaviour there is the being which behaves. The cotmexion of our abiding personal identity, nay the simplest exercise of self-conscious memory, compels us to acknowledge the reality of a permanent principle, the subject and connecting bond of the transitory states. Mind adequately conceived must thus be held to include the subject or agent along with states or activities, and it should be the business of a complete science of mind to investigate both.

All our rational knowledge of the nature of the mind must be derived from the study of its operations. Consequently metaphysical or rational psychology logically follows empirical or phenomenal psychology. The careful observation, description, and analysis of the activities of the mind lead up to our philosophical conclusions as to the inner nature of the subject and the source of those activities. The chief propositions in regard to the human mmd viewed as a substantial principle which Catholic philosophers claim to estab- lish by the light of reason are, its abiding unity, its individuality, its freedom, its simplicity, and its spirit- uality (see Consciousness; Individuality; Intel- lect; Soul).

Mind and Consciousness. — In connexion with the investigation of our mental operations there arises the question, whether these are to be deemed coextensive with consciousness. Are there unconscious mental processes? The problem under different forms has occupied the attention of philosophers from Leibnitz to J. S. Mill, whilst in recent years the phenomena of hypnotism, "multiple personality", and abnormal forms of mental life have brought the question of the relation between the unconscious and the conscious processes in the human organism into greater promi- nence. That all forms of mental life, perception, thought, feeling, and volition are profoundly atfected in character by nervous processes and by vital activi- ties, which do not emerge into the strata of conscious life, seems to be indisputably established. Whether, however, unconscious processes which atfect conclu- sions of the intellect and resolutions of the will, but are in themselves quite unconscious, should be called mental states, or conceived as acts of the mind, has been keenly disputed. In favour of the doctrine of unconscious mental processes have teen urged the fact that many of our ordinary sensations arise out of an aggregate of impressions individually too faint to te separately perceivable, the fact that attention may reveal to us experiences previously unnoticed, the fact that unobserved trains of thought may Ksult in sud- den reminiscences, and that in abnormal mental con- ditions hypnotized, somnambulistic, and hysterical patients often accomplish^ difficult intellectual feats