itself in the facts of feeling, perceiving, &c., we can give a name in order to identify and recognise it: we will call it the consciousness[1] (la conscience), and we will call object everything which is not the act of consciousness.
After this preliminary distinction, to which we shall often refer, we will go over the principal manifestations of the mind, and we will first study the objects of cognition, reserving for another chapter the study of the acts of cognition—that is to say, of consciousness. We will thus examine successively sensation, idea, emotion, and will.
It has been often maintained that the peculiar property of mind is to perceive sensations. It has also been said that thought—that is, the property of representing to one’s self that which does not exist—distinguishes mind from matter. Lastly, it has not failed to be affirmed that one thing which the mind brings into the material
- ↑ The word “conscience” is one of those which has been used in the greatest number of different meanings. Let it be, at least, understood that I use it here in an intellectual and not a moral sense. I do not attach to the conscience the idea of a moral approbation or disapprobation, of a duty, of a remorse. The best example to illustrate conscience has, perhaps, been formed by Ladd. It is the contrast between a person awake and sleeping a dreamless sleep. The first has consciousness of a number of things; the latter has consciousness of nothing. Let me now add that we distinguish from consciousness that multitude of things of which one has consciousness of. Of these we make the object of consciousness. [Conscience has throughout been rendered “consciousness.”—Ed.
